Baseball needs a lot of honesty right now. It needs a lot of people to ask themselves questions and answer honestly, as Towers is.

“The truth is, we’re in a competitive business,” Towers says, “and these guys were putting up big numbers and helping your ballclub win games. You tended to turn your head on things. And it really wakes you up when someone you admire as a person is no longer around. You can’t help but think, could I have done something differently four or five years ago that might have changed what happened to him?

“I hate to be the one voice for the other 29 GMs, but I’d have to imagine that all of them, at one point or other, had reason to think that a player on their ballclub was probably using, based on body changes and things that happened over the winter.”

The Padres were a baseball laughingstock after their 1993 fire sale, and before the 1995 season, they traded for Caminiti in an 11-player deal. Tony Gwynn was the face of the team, but Caminiti gave them an identity, playing hard every day, diving in the dirt at third base and throwing out runners while sitting on his backside.

He played sick, he played hurt, he was the MVP in 1996, and the Padres won a division championship, revitalizing a dormant franchise. And he was on steroids.

“We went through a real difficult time in 1994, with the strike,” Towers says. “Then some amazing things happened. Home runs were up. Fans were flocking to ballparks, lining up to watch batting practice. But we all realized that there were things going on within the game that were affecting the integrity of the game. I think we all knew it, but we didn’t say anything about it.”

Towers believes money was not Caminiti’s motivation for taking steroids. Rather, he thinks Caminiti only wanted to find a way to play every day, through a 90 percent tear of his throwing shoulder, through injuries that plagued him. Steroids helped him recover from day to day. But during the 1998 season, Caminiti’s last with the team, Towers saw the relentless and powerful third baseman crumble, sometimes falling down during his swing.

“He could hardly stay on his feet,” Towers says. “It just got to the point where his body couldn’t handle it anymore. He was broke physically, and broke mentally.

“I feel as GM I probably get to know these guys better than my own family. And as a young GM, what Cammy did not only for the organization, but for my career … If he’s not there, not only am I not wearing a ring, who knows if I’m still a general manager? Those were three of the best years we ever had.”

     “We’ve reached an agreement with the Hawks, and things should be in place no later than early (today),” said Payton’s agent, Aaron Goodwin. “It’s just going to be a matter of getting the paperwork approved by the league.”

     The unlikelihood that Payton will be claimed off waivers is based on the fact a team would have to be more than $5.4 million under the salary cap or have an exception that size to take on the veteran.

     Payton then will be free to sign where he wishes, and Goodwin said yesterday he has had some interesting calls from teams which reportedly include Miami and Phoenix.

     “Quite honestly, Gary’s out with his family and his mom, and I haven’t talked to him much,” Goodwin said. “I think he’s leaning toward coming back to the Celtics. I think he likes what’s going on in Boston. I still have to talk to him about things, but I think that’s where he wants to end up. But you never know with Gary.”

In a story in Sunday’s Chicago Sun-Times, Ordonez praised his new owner with the Detroit Tigers, Mike Ilitch, and in the next breath said he doesn’t understand why his former owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, won’t pay the money to keep his best players.

Enough was enough for Guillen, who has grown tired of reading and hearing about Ordonez’s shots at the Sox.
“This is bull [bleep],” Guillen told the Sun-Times, pointing to a copy of Ordonez’s quotes. “This is girl [stuff]. Every time there are a couple of [reporters] over there with a piece of paper and a pencil in his hand, is he going to talk about the White Sox? Come on, just move on. Just play your game and forget about the White Sox.”

Guillen is most bothered by the fact that Ordonez is making himself out to be the victim when he was offered three separate contracts by the Sox last season, including at least one after he went down for the season with a knee injury.

He also was irked that Ordonez has implied the Sox aren’t interested in winning and that Ordonez says the Sox tried to exaggerate his injury to make him less attractive to other suitors.

“Don’t come around and make this thing look like crap when you’re not right, when you know you’re lying,” Guillen said. “Don’t lie. You can say whatever you want: I want to make some money, I hate Kenny Williams, I hate Jerry Reinsdorf, I hope they die — whatever you want to say. But don’t come out every day and say things to make sure you look good with the fans.

“[Don't] say that they [Williams and Reinsdorf] are horse [bleep] and I’m not. Because now the fans and the media, they will hear what I have to say, and they know I won’t bull-[bleep] them.”

“I’d rather see the player say, ‘Listen, I wanted out of there because I wanted more money,”’ Guillen said. “I respect that. When Alex Rodriguez said he wanted out of there because ‘I want to win,’ Seattle won 100 games with him [actually 91 in 2000] and they won 116 without him [in 2001]. If you want to win, that’s a winning team. You left because of the money, and Magglio left because of the money.

They had come on Saturday night. They thought the line would be shorter on 42nd Street than out at Shea Stadium. Vazquez would hold the spot when Candela would go for coffee, or food. They would take turns getting warm in the Sunfire.

“We always root for the Mets,” Victor Vazquez said, “even when we stink. But now we feel like the owners have shown us that they give a damn again.”

“You want to know when we started talking about making the trip into town, pulling the all-nighter?” Candela said. “When they got Pedro. Even before Beltran. Pedro showed us, right off the bat, things were gonna be different with Omar (Minaya) in charge.”

Delgado’s agent, David Sloane, apparently is not satisfied that his client snubbed the Mets to sign a similar four-year, $52-million contract with the Marlins. Why else would Sloane send out an e-mail of a Toronto Sun story that traces a timeline of Delgado’s path to Florida and portrays Al Leiter as a Mets detractor?

According to Sloane’s account in the story, Leiter was a key figure in Delgado’s meeting with Marlins officials Jan. 15 at Joe’s Stone Crab in Miami, when he reportedly conjured a nightmare scenario of playing in New York.

Leiter is quoted as saying, “Who better to discourage him from going to New York?” He then describes what happens when things go poorly in the media capital of the world. “It just chip, chip, chip, chips away at your resolve, cracking away your protective toughness,” he said. “Every bad game it’s like, ‘Are you worried? … The manager says this … Are you worried?’ You begin to doubt yourself. That’s why slumps in New York are so elongated.

“Then the guys on [talk radio] get on you, move it up another notch, and everyone driving to the game listens. You get to the park and your home fans are booing you and after the game you say something stupid.”

Mets officials were surprised that Leiter might have been the secret weapon for the Marlins in winning the Delgado sweepstakes, and Leiter denied that he specifically ripped his former team during the negotiations.

“I don’t know if I said exactly that, but it sounds like that actually happens to players from time to time,” Leiter said yesterday in an e-mail exchange. “I wasn’t ripping New York. I was telling him how sometimes it is more difficult to get out of slumps and it is when a player slumps that he is most vulnerable.”

Yet Robinson, 31, does not lack confidence. As a player who relies far more on swiftness than power, he likens himself to Juan Pierre, a center fielder for the Florida Marlins. In his five-year career, Pierre has hit .312 with 210 stolen bases and 424 runs scored, helping the Marlins win the 2003 World Series.

The speed and effectiveness of Pierre, hitting leadoff, and the Marlins’ No. 2 hitter, Luis Castillo, has led other teams, including the Mets, to seek speed at the top of the lineup. The Mets are doing that with José Reyes, Kazuo Matsui and Beltran.

“I think of myself as Juan Pierre if he never got a chance to start,” Robinson said Sunday, before rain cut the Mets’ practice short. “If I could play every day, I think over the course of a season I could really do some damage.”

Robinson has played in 445 major league games, yet has never started more than 31 in a season. He played in 80 games for San Diego last season, but had just 92 at-bats. He did hit .293, stealing 11 bases and scoring 20 runs.

Omar Minaya, the Mets’ general manager, persuaded Robinson to sign in December. Robinson liked hearing Minaya talk about the Mets’ building for a brighter future, but that was just before Beltran signed a $119 million contract, locking down the last starting outfield job.

In that time, the volunteers, all men, were, to varying degrees, lightly tortured: stripped, slapped, subjected to extremes of temperature, screamed at, touched, blindfolded, shackled, forced to soil themselves, deprived of food, disoriented, isolated, intimidated, humiliated, threatened, deprived of sleep, and then put through it all again.

The first to leave was taken out after 10 hours, suffering stress and hypothermia. The last, one of the first to vomit, finally asked to be let out because he couldn’t take what was being done to him anymore. Earlier, he had become so distracted he’d failed to notice his handcuffs had cut off the blood to his hands. Interviewed later, he seemed shocked numb.

What to make of The Guantanamo Guidebook? This one-off, which recreates inside a Hackney warehouse procedures used at the US prison camp in Cuba, where “enemy combatants” have been detained without charge since 2002, is the centrepiece of Channel 4’s week-long Torture strand.

The season explores a post-9/11 acceptance of, even appetite for, torture – or, to use the Newspeak euphemism, “enhanced interrogation techniques” – within the US and UK administrations. An acceptance this has led to Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, and to the situation where Britain will happily use information extracted from captives in Uzbekistan, whose intelligence agencies (according to Craig Murray, our former ambassador to that country) boil their prisoners alive.

But there is a possibility of using one of those first-rounders on one old coach — namely, Hall-of-Famer Larry Brown.

The Knicks can never admit it publicly because they’d be tampering, but two league sources said Thomas knows he is now in much better position to make a deal for a head coach — not just Brown — who might be under contract elsewhere.

Before Thursday, the Knicks were in no position to land Brown. It’s been widely speculated that the Knicks would have to fork over their first-round pick along with cash this June if they wanted to get Brown from under his Piston contract, which runs another three years.

Problem is, the Knicks are forbidden from trading their own first-round pick under NBA rules. A team mat not deal its own first-round pick in two successive years. The Knicks shipped their 2004 first-rounder to Phoenix in the Stephon Marbury deal.

The Chicago Tribune reported Saturday than an e-mail death threat submitted through Canseco’s Web site forced Canseco to halt his book-signing tour.

Canseco’s attorney Robert Saunooke told the paper the FBI is investigating the threat and has identified the sender of the e-mail with help from AOL.

“[Bleep] the agent,” Steinbrenner told reporters from a Legends Field elevator. “He’s no good.”

he Boss is ticked that Tellem has advised Giambi against using the word “steroids” in any of his conversations about BALCO. If the embattled Yankees slugger does make an official admission, the Bombers would have better legal standing to void the remaining $82 million on his contract.

Sources said they believe Steinbrenner also is fuming because he thinks Tellem leaked the story about how the word “steroids” was dropped from Giambi’s contract.

The Boss is apoplectic that Tellem attempted to spin that particular story to make the Yankees look like willing co-conspirators, when in reality the club replaced the phrase with broader language that still protected them against steroid use, sources say.

Thus, George M. Steinbrenner momentarily became George F. Steinbrenner, or George Carlin. Steinbrenner, who stunned reporters with his matter-of-fact F-bomb, came down to the Yankees clubhouse a few minutes later and apologized.

“I just don’t like the guy,” he said. “I’m not happy with him.”

Other Yankees said they think Tellem is acting professionally on behalf of his client and have no problem with that.

“Well, the court told Jason that he could say anything he wanted to,” Steinbrenner said. “And then Arn Tellem says, ‘No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything.’ ”

Tellem countered that court officials told Giambi he might be a federal witness in the future and was led to believe he shouldn’t talk about his grand jury testimony.

Asked if Giambi would’ve come off better during his New York press conference if he had explained what he had apologized for, the Boss responded, “I don’t know what he was apologizing for. You’ll have to ask him.”

Steinbrenner said he wasn’t angry with Giambi and gave him a big hug on the field at the end of yesterday’s workout.

Yankees execs can’t be sure whether Giambi’s finished. With the effects of the steroids presumably wearing off, there’s no telling what he’ll be. No matter what he is, he isn’t worth the $82 million coming to him. What’s worse, they’re pretty sure they’re stuck with him.

Steinbrenner is blaming the wrong party for this mess, anyway. If he doesn’t like Giambi’s deal, he needs to grab a mirror.

Steinbrenner is the one who insisted on Giambi. The Yankees could have brought back Tino Martinez on a two- or three-year deal, kept their chemistry intact and spent the extra loot elsewhere. But Steinbrenner is fascinated by the long ball. He was in love.

Steinbrenner and his executives messed up. They showed bad taste and poor judgment by signing a player everyone strongly suspected of being on steroids even if they didn’t absolutely know it. They had to know he was a player who liked to get out, and stay out, past midnight.

Yankees people haven’t completely given up challenging the contract, but their current strategy appears to involve waiting for Giambi to slip up and say the wrong thing. That’s a longshot.

While Giambi is anything but cautious in the way he lives his life, he is oh so careful not to make any admission that could jeopardize the $82 million. If you think reporters were frustrated by Giambi’s murky apology, that’s nothing compared to how Steinbrenner feels.

“The court told Jason he could say anything he wanted to. Then Arn Tellem says no, he doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything,” Steinbrenner said.

“I just don’t like the guy,” Steinbrenner said about Tellem.

Terance Frazier, described as Giambi’s closest friend and confidant at Class A Modesto, Calif., told the magazine: “He was getting pressure from the organization. He said they were telling him he needed to hit home runs. He was getting frustrated.”

According to a San Francisco Chronicle story late last year, Giambi admitted to a federal grand jury investigating BALCO that he used performance-enhancing steroids and human growth hormone for at least three seasons. Giambi refuses to answer direct questions about his steroid use, but he says he told the truth to the grand jury.

“He’s out of options. You’ve got to assume he’s going to be on your ballclub,” Duncan said. “The way I’m looking at it is, how’s he going to pitch, what’s he going to do? When I watch Rick pitch I’m trying to envision how he’s going to be part of our staff. I’m not thinking about anything else.”

“Everybody has a responsibility, and Rick is going to have a responsibility. There isn’t anything special about his responsibility. He’s got one-eleventh or one-twelfth of it,” assessed manager Tony La Russa, referring to the question of whether he takes 11 or 12 pitchers into the season.

Ankiel (above), now 25, threw 40 pitches to four hitters. Five were hit but only two left the cage. Only Gonzalez’s opposite-field swing on a too-high offering would have fallen for a hit.

A breaking pitch hit third baseman Scott Seabol in the foot but left no bruise.

“He looked good,” Duncan said, estimating that the lefthander’s mechanics looked to be in proper alignment for all but five pitches – an acceptable ratio in his first exposure against hitters this spring. “He got a little flat on a couple but otherwise it looked very solid.”

“Everything he threw was good,” said catcher Yadier Molina. “It’s exciting.”

Ankiel’s career has been stop and start since October 2000. Command problems, elbow issues and ligament replacement surgery have derailed a pitcher who teased the Cardinals with 11 wins before turning 22.

Returning last summer from surgery in July 2003, Ankiel worked 23 2/3 innings among Tennessee, Memphis and St. Louis.

He made five appearances for the Cardinals, doing nothing to quell anticipation for his return.

“I was excited to see him,” La Russa said. “He pitched just a few times, but watching his bullpen sessions, he showed what he’s capable of because he was pitching. He put a little on, took a little off, moving it around, showing two or three fastballs, a couple different breaking balls and a good change. That’s something to get excited about.”

What Duncan once lambasted as a media-induced “freak show” has dissipated. The only remaining obstacle is for Ankiel to become more comfortable throwing to bases.

Duncan sees improvement in the changeup that almost disappeared the past several seasons. The curveball is still knee-buckling. The fastball still climbs into the mid-90s.

Therre is no remaining margin for delay. Ankiel has no remaining options, meaning he must first clear waivers for the Cardinals to send him to the minors.

His breakout 2000 season and remaining potential make that virtually impossible.

On Tuesday, New York attorney Kerry Konrad won the right in an eBay auction to name Boston’s FleetCenter for a day. For his $2,325, Konrad wanted to honor the New York Yankees shortstop.

But, on Friday, FleetCenter officials rejected the name, which Konrad hoped would add to the 25-year rivalry he has had with his former college classmates who are Boston Red Sox fans.

“We decided that all the names had to be rated G, and this name was determined to be obscene and vulgar,” said Richard A. Krezwick, president and chief executive of the FleetCenter, which has auctioned off daily naming rights to about a dozen companies since its contract with the bank was terminated. “We were afraid of the volume of phone calls bogging down our switchboard, the number of e-mails clogging our portal and the potential graffiti on the side of our building.”

When reached at his office, Konrad said he was not disappointed.

“I had no idea that this joke would get so much attention in the first place,” Konrad said. “It was a joke. I’ve already had my laugh. But I could have made it much worse, like the A-Rod Center, Bucky Dent Center, the Aaron Boone Center, or the ‘Only 25 More [championships] To Go’ Center.”

To be fair, the Red Sox are only 20 championships behind the Yankees’ major league record 26.

     Atlanta, according to multiple sources, has agreed to buy Payton out of what’s left on the final year of his contract.

     Though agent Aaron Goodwin declined comment last night, his client is already believed to be receiving inquiries from several teams in anticipation of the buyout.

     Though Miami has reportedly expressed interest, the Celtics are still considered a favorite to keep Payton in green, based on the starting role they can offer him. With Dwyane Wade now in a shooting guard role, and Damon Jones also commanding major backcourt minutes, the Heat may not have the same opportunity for Payton.

The box was meant for an organization as twisted as any of Sidiot’s “comedy” stylings. An organization as irrational as some of Benigno’s old midnight monologues.

The National Hockey League.

That’s who this mock funeral was for. That’s why so many people in the small crowd were smiling. A joke is supposed to be funny. And there is no bigger punch line in sports than the NHL.

Gary Bettman’s league is nothing more than a resource for Letterman and Leno.

This did not dawn on Benigno. He was a few minutes away from being able to dump on Bettman and Bob Goodenow, two humorless bureaucrats, but seemed reluctant to seize the opportunity. Deep in conversation with FAN GM Lee Davis, Benigno said something about facing “an embarrassing” moment. Davis put his arm around Benigno. The talkie just dragged on a cigarette and threw it to the ground.

Perhaps Benigno was embarrassed over the size of the turnout. Forty. Tops. Maybe less. Math ain’t my thing.

There was a mixture of FAN employees, a few true fans, and some curious bystanders who wandered out of the restaurant.

Sidiot stood at the podium looking down at the casket, which contained a pillow and a couple of hockey sweaters. Someone asked if he was cold.

“If I stand here 20 more minutes I may be in there,” said Rosenberg, pointing to the casket.

Sidiot’s detractors could only hope.

Someone read a hockey poem (fortunately it was short) before Benigno took over the microphone.

“I’d like to thank everybody that showed up here today,” Benigno said. “I question your intelligence.

“… It’s tough for a Rangers fan. It’s another year where we won’t make the playoffs, but nobody else will, either.”

Adding more ice to the atomosphere, Benigno segued into a somber spiel. Another dissertation on the salary cap would not bring any heat to this soiree.

Rosenberg broke the ice. He said the lost season has left fans with many important questions.

“The most pressing of all is: What’s Carol Alt going to do now?” Rosenberg asked.

Another question offered by Sidiot? “Is a former haberdasher turned prostitute now a hat trick?”

Rosenberg obviously consulted with spiritual scholars to find the most appropriate line to close out his eulogy.

“So, to the NHL, puck you. And oh yeah, Potvin sucks.”

There’s nothing more damning than spouting a conflicting philosophy.

Once again the Knicks have exchanged two bad players with undesirable contracts – plus their one and only pro center – for a pair of fringe starters with longer and higher salaries.

In the opaque opinion of the team’s patronizing president, anybody who can’t see the above deals are perfectly reasonable deserves to be demeaned.

In his murky mind Thomas believes he’s justified swapping Nazr Mohammed ($5.5M) and Jamison Brewer to the Spurs for Malik Rose ($6M, $6.55M, $7.1M, $7.64M) as well as Moochie Norris ($4.2M) and Vin Baker ($3.85M) to the Rockets for Maurice Taylor (above) ($9.1M and $9.7M).

Why? Because the Knicks got two first-round picks pre-owned by Phoenix and San Antonio as part of the package.

According to Thomas’ shadowy genius, their mutual irrelevancy is worth more than competing with a halfway competent center. His lame logic is biting and sweeping:

“Who did I have playing center for me now?” Thomas submarined.

“Come on, Mohammed was that bad?” I replied.

“No, not that bad,” Thomas qualified. “But everyone in the Eastern Conference is playing without a pure center except the Heat [Shaq], the Cavaliers [Zydrunas Ilgauskas] and now the Bulls [Eddy Curry].”

Like, whoa! I could’ve sworn I heard Thomas repeatedly defend the Keith Van Horn-Tim Thomas transaction back when by claiming his sole motive for making it was to get Mohammed in the three-way deal.

In Thomas’ jumbled judgment he thinks compiling immaterial draft picks (two No. 1s this June and two the year after, he gleefully notes) is vital to rebuilding.

“Look how many quality players were drafted low in the first round and early in the second,” he stresses. “We drafted [traded for, actually] Jamaal Tinsley at No. 27 at Indiana and my other choice was Gilbert Arenas [taken No. 31 by the Warriors].

Fine, we all know the league’s elite talent scouts make their fair share of mistakes every draft. Josh Howard went No. 29, Tony Parker went No. 28, while Auburn’s Marquis Daniels went undrafted, for crying out tears despite winning player of the year in the Southeastern Conference.

Rashard Lewis (No. 32), Manu Ginobili (No. 57) and Arenas are ideal examples of players who were criminally overlooked. But just because Thomas uncovered Trevor Ariza at No. 43 last June it doesn’t mean he’s assured of a superior being (on the scale of the above three reigning All-Stars) slipping through the cracks, nor has he proved he can identify it if it’s there for the plucking.

“Sammy’s gone,” Baker said. “But at least you should be able to tell the truth about things.”

Sosa maintained his final-day walkout came only after Baker had told him he was off. Baker said former assistant trainer Sandy Krum served as the go-between, telling Baker the day before the final game that Sosa was feeling a little nicked up and wanted out of the lineup for the finale.

“Actually, [Krum] came in the night before and told me that he said he wanted off,” Baker said. “I said [to Krum], ‘Fine. If that’s how he wants it, if you don’t want to play, I’ll play [Jason] Dubois.’ … I didn’t give him the day off—he asked for it. Again, it’s a matter of who you believe.”

Baker reiterated he never gave Sosa permission to leave the ballpark. He expected Sosa to be on the bench with the rest of the position players who weren’t in the starting lineup.

“Where I come from, that’s what [a day off] means,” Baker said.

Sosa refused to confirm to reporters in Florida that Baker had called him after the trade, leaving the impression he hadn’t.

“He insinuated he didn’t call me in Milwaukee either,” Baker said, referring to the late-night phone call Aug. 17 in which Sosa allegedly volunteered to be dropped in the batting order. “Yeah, we spoke on the phone. I wouldn’t say we’d spoken if we didn’t. It depends on who you believe.”

Sosa also said his new manager, Lee Mazzilli, whom he has met with twice, is the first one he has had who has dealt with him honestly, implying Baker, Don Baylor, Jim Riggleman and many others for whom he has played didn’t do so.

“He said the same thing about me when I got here,” Baker said. “And when Baylor got here.”

Baker was more than perturbed by the inference he hasn’t been honest with Sosa. Over the winter, Sosa complained that Baker “embarrassed” him by dropping him in the order. Baker maintains Sosa not only asked him to drop him during their late-night phone call in Milwaukee but also asked him to tell reporters it was Sosa’s idea.

“If you talk to most people who know me, they’ll tell you I’m too honest,” Baker said. “So [the Sosa accusations] are contradictory to my personality.”

Champions’ League group game, 7 Dec 2004

Valencia 0 Werder Bremen 2

Frisk booked five Valencia players and sent off a sixth as Claudio Ranieri’s side was eliminated. “When you see the referee give them more than you, you feel as though you are being shafted,” Ranieri said. He later apologised, saying: “I was in a very agitated state.”

Champions’ League group game, 15 Sep 2004

Roma 0 Dynamo Kiev 1 (abandoned at half-time)

Frisk abandoned the game after being hit by a missile thrown from the crowd following his decision to send off Roma defender Philippe Mexes.

Euro 2004 semi-final, 30 June

Portugal 2 Netherlands 1

Ruud van Nistelrooy accused the referee of being a “home whistler” and was handed a two-match ban for insulting behaviour towards Frisk.

World Cup, first knock-out round, 16 June 2002

Spain 1 Rep Ireland 1 (Spain won on penalties)

We did it when we followed Mark McGwire in 1998 and failed to ask the appropriate questions. I was especially guilty, because I believed back then what Jose Canseco is writing now: That McGwire didn’t hit 70 home runs on hard work alone. Yet, I said nothing. I thought my silence amounted to fairness, because I didn’t have proof. But I remember very clearly thinking: If I were Barry Bonds, watching this spectacle, knowing what is being left unsaid, knowing that I’m twice the player McGwire is, I would spend my offseason looking for the same power boost.

The press, by celebrating McGwire’s home-run record without scrutiny, invited every other ballplayer into the world of doping. That’s why I have never seen the steroid scandal as Barry-centric. He is responsible for whatever he has done, but he’s not uniquely villainous or dishonest. We are all complicit.

I have lied about Bonds, too, but not in the way he meant when he went after the media at his spring-training debut on Tuesday. The first time I saw him in 2001, I said to myself: “He’s juiced.” I didn’t say it in this column because, again, I didn’t have proof. But I was sure of it.

I have committed several more lies of omission since Bonds was implicated in the BALCO case a year and a half ago. I covered his 700th home run and never once mentioned that maybe, just maybe, he didn’t reach the milestone naturally. I had plenty of excuses — a brutal deadline, a reluctance to draw a cloud over the celebration, an inability to introduce such an important topic without letting it become the entire story. It was cowardice as much as anything, but it was a lie, too.

I have no excuses. These aren’t mistakes. I make a lot of those, just like any other human being. It’s one of the reasons I find it excruciating to attack athletes for errors on the field.

I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that every time an athlete dies young, I wonder if steroids played a role. Or that every time a rich athlete commits an act of violence, I have the same concern.

I’d also be lying if I didn’t say that Bonds has started sounding like a Karl Rove client. His talking points had a familiar ring.

Can’t find any weapons of mass destruction? Change the subject to democracy in Iraq.

Don’t want to answer questions about what you said to the BALCO grand jury? Pretend that it’s a pending legal issue, even though you have immunity and the federal prosecutor in the case has already said that all the athletes can repeat their testimony in public.

Ingram hit everything that moved and fouled out in 4 minutes (including a technical foul). Chaney saw it as rough justice, but it wasn’t. Instead, whether he knew it or not, he was mocking the game that has been his life.

“I’m sending a message,” Chaney said. “And I’m going to send in what we used to do years ago – send in the goons. That’s what I’m going to do. That’s what you used to do…

“I’ve got me two of them on my bench and I’m going to use them. We try to play the game right. But when you’ve got two screens set up, and they’re moving, there’s only one person who used to set up screens like that, and that was Bob Knight, and he got away with it. The Celtics used to do it, they got away with it.

“I’m from the old school,” he said. “I tried to play it right, but no more. No more.”

Ingram’s last foul, a shove as the Hawks’ John Bryant was making a basket underneath, left Bryant sprawled out among the cheerleaders for a couple of minutes. After the game, St. Joe’s coach Phil Martelli said Bryant was fine, but he looked hurt at the time, and later on the bench.

To which, Chaney replied, “That’s what happens. That’s what happens. I’m a mean, ornery, son of a bitch. You understand? When I see something wrong, I try to right it. I try to do the same thing they’re doing.

“You ask me what’s happening in the game? Illegal screens should never happen in the game.”

As he entered the interview room, Chaney was bellowing at Linda Bruno, the Atlantic 10 commissioner, about the officials. He asked her for Big Ten officials the next time, or ACC officials. He asked her loudly. Little did he know that two of last night’s officials, Jim Burr and Mike Sanzere, also work in the Big Ten, and that the other official, Karl Hess, also works in the ACC. Oh, well.

It still made for some great theater, as Chaney moments often do. Then Bruno and everyone else listened to see if Chaney would admit the obvious – that he sent Ingram into the game as a guided missile and nothing more.

Admit it? There was never a question, seeing as how Chaney essentially promised to do the self-same thing on a Monday conference call with Atlantic 10 reporters. This was not some heat-of-the-moment overreaction to another tough game – oh, and by the way, the Hawks again beat the Owls last night, 63-56. This was a planned response if the officiating went the way Chaney suspected it would.

Asked if he was concerned about the game when he sent in a kid for the simple purpose of gooning it up, Chaney bristled.

“I’m worried about what happens when officials apply a different measurement for one team as opposed to another,” he said. “You can protect shooters in a legal way, not illegal. I respect a team that plays as a team, but a moving screen is a moving screen…

“I’m also going to send a message to everybody in our league that when we come to play, we’re going to set them, too. I’m not going to have my guys getting hurt. The last time, the guy hit Mardy [Collins, Temple's leading scorer] with a hip at the Palestra. No! The guy’s standing there, looking at it! No, I don’t play that game.”

You couldn’t help but be reminded of some long-forgotten outrages in Chaney’s career, when his quest for justice got in the way of his common sense. People who talk about the old man getting old really don’t get it, because Chaney has been doing this stuff forever. If you closed your eyes last night, you could have been in Morgantown in the mid-1980s, with Chaney calling an official a “bleeping Jesse James.” This really is back to the future, even if Nehemiah Ingram wasn’t born when Chaney started pulling this stuff.

Injustice always has been his target, and outrage always has been his fuel – and the man does stand for great things. But there always has been this fear shared by the people who really like Chaney, that one of these moments would serve to trivialize a great and successful career.

In response to the many listener’s calls ranging from outrage at the players and the league, to sadness at the loss of their favorite sport we will hold vigil for the FANs to mark the demise of the hockey season. WFAN will conduct a memorial service tomorrow in hopes of providing some light-hearted relief.

Taking a lie-detector test before a paying public, he said on ESPN2’s “Cold Pizza”, would be “the straw that breaks the camel’s back.” He said on NBC’s “Today” that “something will occur in the next month or so that will prove my book 100 percent correct.”

He also told Matt Lauer on “Today” that “somewhere down the line, very soon,” those who have denied the accusations in his book – from McGwire to their former Oakland manager, Tony La Russa – “are going to be ashamed of what they said.”

The pay-per-view plan was rejected by HBO Sports.

“We took a pass, feeling that it felt like you’d have to take a shower after watching it,” said Ross Greenburg, the president of HBO Sports. “None of us saw a show there. It felt like a publicity stunt to make money and that doesn’t translate into television.”

Greenburg added: “What would we do? Show highlights of him shooting steroids into people’s rear ends, then watch the needle going off a polygraph. It would be like watching paint dry.”

At the bookstore, after the supply of autograph-signing fans had faded, Canseco said that for clues to the elements of the show, “Read the book! The question is, ‘Is Jose Canseco telling the truth?’ We’ll tackle the issue.”

But what else would happen in 60 or 90 minutes for a price of, say, $19.95 per home? “That’s yet to be seen,” Canseco said. “Look, I never thought when I wrote this that it’d be a best seller, to tell my story without the media diluting it.”

Those who assembled for the book signing were not certain they would pay to watch Canseco on pay per view.

“Last year, we needed Steve Finley in order to win the division and make the playoffs, so I moved over to right field to make room for him,” said Bradley, who arrived at spring training one day before the reporting date for position players. “I made that sacrifice. But as for now, I’m playing center field.”

Asked how he would react to being asked to play right again, Bradley was even more decisive.

“That won’t happen,” he said. “I don’t believe it will. It really wouldn’t make sense for a guy who has played right field his whole career to start playing center when you have a capable center fielder already.”

Drew, who also reported Tuesday but quickly left the complex because he was feeling ill, has said he prefers to play center but would be willing to play right. Drew primarily played right field most of his six seasons in St. Louis and one year in Atlanta, but in he was playing alongside Jim Edmonds with the Cardinals and Andruw Jones with the Braves. Edmonds and Jones have won seven Gold Gloves apiece in center field.

Bradley and Drew are superb defensive outfielders. Jayson Werth, slated to play left field, also is capable of playing center.

Told of Bradley’s comments, Tracy more or less shrugged them off.

“If I could play center field the way (Bradley) does, I would feel that way myself,” Tracy said. “I know we’re going to have three center fielders in our outfield. I know we’re going to have an outfield that is pretty good defensively. And I think it’s important to get each one of those guys 400 to 500 at-bats for us to be the best team we can possibly be.”

Although Bradley made it clear he thinks he is more deserving of the center field job than Drew, he also was careful not to disrespect his new teammate, who signed a five-year, $55 million free-agent deal with the Dodgers two months ago.

He likely is very proud of that, because he knows he has won over as many people as he ever will. It’s why he decided to make his in-your-eye stand here, on this day, with as much of the nation watching as possible for midday viewing patterns.

It wasn’t a declaration of war with Doubting America, because Bonds’ moods run hot, cold and lukewarm, just as everyone else’s do. But it was a fairly clear indication that he would never admit, apologize or announce anything he didn’t feel like admitting to, apologizing for or announcing. Anyone in the room who thought otherwise was, is and will be thoroughly delusional.

This might be a case of piling on a sports corpse, but the bungling league and the misguided players union deserved it.

It’s rare that a sports television executive excoriates a property once esteemed by his network, let alone questions if the network agreed to pay too much.

ESPN will pay nothing this year because of the cancellation, but Shapiro said that some people thought the deal to pay $60 million this season to put games on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC was too rich.

Even more ominous for the N.H.L. is that ESPN may not exercise its option to renew its deal for 2005-6, even if there is a season. With all its leverage, ESPN could let the option lapse and negotiate a discount deal like NBC’s, which offers no guaranteed cash and only promises of sharing revenues, once there are some.

For this season, except for the playoffs, hockey was to have left ESPN, and ESPN2 was to show 40 games. College basketball is doubling the N.H.L. rating that ESPN2 scratched out last season.

“Right now,” Shapiro said last week, “we’re not really sure how to value the league. We have to assess the damage, as do they, and only until you do that and consider your options can you put a true value on what it’s worth.”

Almost all of them would be intensely curious as to what was written.

Ben Grieve (above), befitting his laid-back personality, did not bother to open the book until the past weekend. While driving from his home in Flower Mound, Texas, to attend spring training with the Pirates, he stopped at a Barnes & Noble, picked up a copy and flipped to the page devoted almost entirely to him.

To his satisfaction, he saw that Canseco accused him only of being misguided for staying away from steroids while both were members of the Oakland Athletics in the late 1990s.

“Let me tell you, Ben Grieve was a kid who needed to take steroids,” Canseco wrote. “He had a slow bat, slow feet and average ability.”

Grieve had a few laughs about his inclusion after a round of batting practice at McKechnie Field yesterday, when position players were required to report to Bradenton.

In a 35-minute display of defiance and rhetoric, the London Mayor insisted he had not meant to offend Jews – and renewed his tirade against Associated Newspapers, owner of the Daily Mail and London Evening Standard.

Many had predicted Mr Livingstone would end the controversy, which threatened to overshadow London’s bid for the 2012 Olympic Games, by expressing regret for any offence caused to the Jewish community. But the Mayor said instead he had been “deeply affected” by concerns that his comments downplayed the Holocaust.

He contrasted what he said was his own record on combating racism – then spoke about what he claimed was the Daily Mail group’s role as “leading advocates of anti-Semitism in Britain for half a century”.

At his weekly press conference in City Hall, Mr Livingstone intensified his conflict with Associated Newspapers by accusing its titles of peddling intolerance, first against Russian Jews a century ago and now against asylum-seekers. The Mayor said: “While it is true the Mail group no longer smears Jews as bringing crime and disease to the UK, it is only because they have moved on.

“After a decade of pandering to racism against our citizens of black and Irish origin, they have moved on and now describe asylum-seekers and Muslims in similar terms. For the Mail group, the victims may change but the intolerance, hatred and fear pervade every issue of the papers.”

But that’s the NBA.

A year ago at this time, how many people were selling the Detroit Pistons as the 2004 NBA champions? Not many. And even die-hard Pistons fans didn’t have much hope after their team lost at home to the New Jersey Nets and fell behind 3-2 in the second round of the playoffs.

Standing in fifth place in the Western Conference, the Kings said they believe their best basketball will be good enough to compete with the league’s best.

With one of the season’s most challenging stretches coming up, this might be a good time for the best to unveil itself, and sooner rather than later.

Sacramento will have to find a higher level and maintain it just to get into the playoffs, as Adelman has been reminding of late.

Among the remaining regular-season games, the Kings face 16 teams that currently have a .500 or better record. So far, Sacramento is 13-15 against teams that are .500 or better. The Kings have yet to play the Orlando Magic and Detroit.

So just how do the Kings improve with the games and time they have left?

They already have one of the league’s most complete offensive attacks, one that scores inside and outside, when they move the ball like they are capable.

Undoubtedly, a healthier Peja Stojakovic (above), who has been suffering from the flu and back and hamstring aches, will lift the offense. There were murmurs at the beginning of this season about the step or half-step Bobby Jackson has allegedly lost. These days, the Kings would welcome having that half-step come off the bench in combination with reserves Maurice Evans, Darius Songaila and Eddie House and/or a couple of the starters. Jackson, recovering from a torn left wrist ligament, is projected to return for the playoffs.

Of course, the Kings’ best chances for success will occur after Cutino Mobley gets to practice with the entire starting unit. That should boost the offense even more.

Defensively, trouble continues. Sacramento’s defense is one of the league’s shakiest, allowing far too many deep penetrations. Bibby has excelled on offense despite a sore right ankle. But his on-ball defense needs to improve about as much as Brad Miller’s temperament toward referees.

And consider this: How can a team be so bad defensively and yet foul less than all but four teams?

Yo, foul a dude! Leave your man to do so. Trust your teammate will help just like you did. And should he fail to do so, jump him for it, whether he’s the highest-paid player, Chris Webber, or rookie Kevin Martin. If they can’t handle it, then winning is not the major priority and talk about making strides is just talk.

In a concerted effort to dip below the salary cap next season, New Orleans is this space’s nominee to make the most noise before the deadline. Bad back and bad contract ($63M over next four seasons) notwithstanding, Baron Davis is almost guaranteed to go, along some with lesser lights.

I presume it’s no surprise to learn the Raptors are offering to provide asylum for the puffy point guard ($12.3M), a squatter for all but 17 games. Sources say Sam Mitchell’s pet antagonist Rafer Alston ($3.5M), Lamond Murray ($4.8M) and Donyell Marshall ($5.8M; currently, perhaps, the most desirable rising free agent) may want to start getting their Cajun groove on.

Of course, Babcock may want to ask himself: “Hmm, if Davis is unhappy and unhealthy [his people swear to me he doesn't need back surgery] playing for a Bourbon Street Walker, why would anything change in Toronto?”

Were Davis able to join Vince Carter and Chris Bosh at the hip, now we’re chatting up a sparkling new outlook. As it stands . . .

The glitch to the above scenario, as I understand it, is the 76ers, who, by the way, would love to plant Davis alongside Allen Iverson; the Hawks also are said to be interested in his perishable goods.

It’s hard to imagine what great windfall the Mets expected to reap for Cameron, who’s injured and disgruntled, and who gets on base far too infrequently, whiffs far too often and looked oddly lost in centerfield at Shea at times last year.

It shouldn’t have shocked anyone that it wasn’t much. There were chances to acquire Eric Byrnes, who’s really a fourth outfielder, and Preston Wilson, whose 2005 salary is double Cameron’s. But that’s about it.

Although Cameron obviously has a high opinion of himself, as he has refused to concede he should move quietly to rightfield, the reality is he’s no bargain with $12.5 million remaining on his Mets contract over two years. The reality is he’s a rightfielder now, at least until he can stir something else up.

Cameron wants everything both ways, his ways. He wants to play centerfield but doesn’t want to go to Oakland to play centerfield. He wants to win, but he acted put off for weeks after the Mets improved significantly by signing superstar Carlos Beltran. He suggests he’s a team man. But he’s acting as self-interested as anyone could.

Cameron’s had plenty of time to deal with the disappointment of being replaced, and he had better adjust fast. Club execs recently visited Cameron in Atlanta and Minaya has made him a regular calling partner in the team’s continuing efforts to stroke his ego, more outsized than anyone realized.

The penultimate player in camp (he beat Gerald Williams), Cameron acts as if centerfield is his birthright. He plays coy when asked about his feelings, but when pressed yesterday, he asserted, “We all know what I am.”

Cameron is pleasant, which explains why he’s getting absurd slack. But the reality is he’s acting like a spoiled rich kid, and has been for weeks.

Cameron talks about the importance of making Beltran feel comfortable in his transition but does nothing to facilitate that. When asked his opinion about Beltran’s centerfield ability, he uses lukewarm words such as “good” and “improving.”

The correct answer, which has eluded Cameron so far, is that Beltran (above) is a superb all-around player and the team’s future. And that he, Cameron, will happily try to become the best rightfielder he can be.

What Cameron needs to change are his ways. He’s the only one balking at Willie Randolph’s rules changes, designed to promote teamwork. When Cameron heard that Randolph frowned on loud clubhouse music, Cameron responded, “I’m going to tell Willie you’ve got to have rhythm. It will be a long year if you have to go the year without music.”

As for Seattle, Cameron thrived there from 2000-03, and reacquiring him would leave the Mariners with four starting outfielders (Ichiro Suzuki, Raul Ibanez and Randy Winn are the others) along with top prospect Jeremy Reed. So it stands to reason that either Winn or Ibanez could be involved in a potential swap.

An investigation is under way to ascertain the identity of the fan who struck United’s goalkeeper Roy Carroll with a coin, with Merseyside police and Everton still scrutinising television footage of that and two other incidents where objects were flung on to the playing area. The FA has welcomed that inquiry as well as the jailing of a Burnley supporter, Michael Lewis, for five months for invading the pitch during his side’s tie with Blackburn.

The violent scenes at Goodison Park and Turf Moor – exacerbated by the injury sustained by the Rangers midfielder Fernando Ricksen after he was struck by a cigarette lighter thrown during Sunday’s Old Firm match at Celtic Park – saw the game’s governing body vow to act against the “mindless individuals” whose actions seriously tarnished the image of the game over the weekend.

That will see greater consideration taken before staging 5.30pm kick-offs for potentially volatile fixtures, such as Wayne Rooney’s highly emotive return to Everton on Saturday, given that supporters can spend the afternoon drinking in local pubs before attending such games.

The MP for Liverpool Walton, Peter Kilfoyle, yesterday accused the FA of “idiocy” and, alongside the BBC, of putting financial considerations ahead of common sense in staging the tie at that time.

“I’m concerned that the FA should come to a commercial arrangement without any regard for public safety,” he said. “I wonder whether there would be as much trouble if people did not have the opportunity to have too much to drink. It is unfair to scapegoat the police. It is unclear to me who actually takes the final decision – I can understand why the police wouldn’t want to be seen to be penalising the majority of decent football supporters because of a hooligan minority.”

The reason for screening the tie of the round in the evening is clear. The audience for the Goodison Park match peaked at 11m people, averaging 7.3m. Arsenal’s earlier clash with Sheffield United drew an average 3.8m, and Burnley’s tie at Sunday lunchtime 2.6m.