Wood has chosen not to talk to the media in recent weeks, telling people privately that he’s not mad at anybody in particular but that he feels more relaxed. He also has been annoyed by how some comments he considered harmless came back to bite him, and he is enjoying a breather from answering questions about his physical well-being.

Manager Dusty Baker said Wood isn’t the only Cub taking a more low-key approach to the season. Baker already has noted that he is going to be less forthcoming with his opinions.

”After last year’s fiasco, everybody is more low-key,” Baker said. ”It’s not only Kerry, it’s probably everybody. We all learned some valuable lessons last year.

“Nope,” the relief pitcher said firmly.

“I’m going to make the Toronto Blue Jays pay every cent of my salary.”

The Jays are on the hook for Koch’s $950,000 US salary. If a team had an injury and needed an arm, it could add Koch at the prorated major-league minimum of $320,000.

“To be released after four outings? What’s four outings in the spring? Nothing,” Koch said. “They can pay my gas money for my car, they can pay to fill up my 240-gallon tank for my 30-foot Pursuit, they can gas up my jet boat and our three jet skis.”

That’s a lot of gas.

“Nothing against the city of Toronto or Jays fans,” Koch said. “I love the city and the fans treated me well.”

Whether this is bullet-proof bullpen bravado that closers need, or whether Koch will change his opinion a month down the road remains to be seen. But that’s what Koch was saying yesterday.

“I read in the paper they say I didn’t work hard,” Koch said. “Talk to any pitching coach or strength coach I’ve had. I lift, run a little, do agility drills and play long toss.

It is a phrase he uses repeatedly when the conversation turns to the possibility of the second-year third baseman David Wright batting eighth – an eyebrow-raising spot in the lineup for a promising young power hitter who had 14 homers, 40 runs batted in and a .293 average in 69 games last year. In the future, Carlos Beltran and Wright could anchor the Mets’ lineup as the No. 3 and No. 4 hitters, so the question is whether batting eighth is the proper apprenticeship for someone as valuable as Wright.

In the N.L., the No. 8 hitter, batting in front of the pitcher, can often go a long time without getting a good pitch to hit. “To me, it boils down to who’s the best guy for that spot,” Randolph said. “Everybody can have their opinion, but it’s what’s best for the ball club.

“David’s basically a rookie,” Randolph added. “We’ve all got to earn our chops.”

But what about Matsui? Is it possible that he could be dropped to the bottom of the order if he does not start hitting? Matsui has proved adept at situational hitting in recent games, collecting all five of his spring-training R.B.I. since his return. But he still walks less and strikes out more than a leadoff or No. 2 hitter should; he has only two walks in spring training and 13 strikeouts, the second most on the team and one more than Andres Galarraga had before he retired.

The Pope may only worship the one god, but he’s got flaky ties to at least three football teams – including Fulham.

According to local SW6 legend, John Paul II – who was a goalkeeper in his youth – stood on the terraces at Craven Cottage in the 1930s when he was studying as a priest in Roehampton. However, when the Daily Star reported this as fact (and cunningly doctored a photo of his holiness holding a Fulham scarf) they were reported to the Press Complaints Commission and forced to make a grovelling apology.

The story doesn’t end there, mind. In 1999, Ken Myers of the Fulham Independent Fanline phoned up the Vatican to ask about the rumours and later told the Sun: “I’d heard the Pope was a fan so, as it was Easter, I thought I’d give him a ring. I couldn’t believe it when I got through to his press spokesman. This guy even knew we were playing Wigan and was happy to talk about it.”

The Pope’s special envoy, Kieron Conroy, was a bit less forward, however. “The Pope wishes Fulham fans all the best,” he told Fleet Street’s finest. “He has written before hoping Fulham’s fortunes would be reversed and offers his support, such as he can give it.”

If that wasn’t inconclusive enough, the Pope also has been linked with Barcelona and Liverpool.

After performing mass at the Nou Camp in front of 120,000 people in November 1982, his holiness was presented with a lifelong Barca membership card – No.108,000 – from president Josep Lluís Núñez – however rumours that he is a season-ticker holder are wide of the mark.

“It was such a great time of his life,” Buss told The Post. “I totally see him back in New York. We were talking about Bill Bradley a couple of hours ago.”

Buss joined Jackson on his book-signing tour through New York in the fall.

“When he was in New York in October, he wanted to take me places, wanted to show me everything,” Buss said. “He’s got a love of the city. A friend of a friend sent to me a New York Knicks team picture when he was on the team. It had all the signatures but they needed Phil’s. We sat down. Told me all the stories.”

Asked if Jackson and Jeanie could be a package deal for the Knicks, she giggled and said, “Well, maybe if he gave me a ring I’d think of something like that. But I don’t think our relationship will be like that. I don’t think I can leave my family business.”

The Lakers executive admitted, though, that Jackson still could turn down all the jobs available because he seems unsure he wants to coach again.

“As close as I am to Phil, I still don’t know if he wants to coach,” she said, echoing the Tuesday comments of Jackson’s friend and biographer, Charley Rosen.

“What’s important to me is he’s healthy and feels good. . . . I can’t get a read one way or another [if he'll coach]. If he does, I want to make sure wherever he goes he has the support we gave him here.”

Buss said she once feared him leaving for the Knicks next season, thinking it was the end of their relationship. Now she’s fine with the idea, even if his returning to the Lakers would be her first choice.

She goes to New York twice a season for the NBA’s Board of Governor’s meetings.

According to the lawsuit, the three boys approached Harrison outside a Louis Vuitton store at the Hilton Hawaiian Village for his autograph and to take his photograph. Harrison was on his cell phone at the time and told the boys to wait. Shortly thereafter, the two men with Harrison, who are not identified but remain part of the lawsuit nonetheless, arrived on the scene and the alleged assault ensued.

The Dodgers have so many new players that Bradley, in his second year, is almost an elder statesman. Among regulars, only shortstop Cesar Izturis has been with the team longer.

“Sometimes you can sense something in the air,” Bradley said. “We’ve had a quiet clubhouse. That’s OK. Every team has its own identity. But it seemed to Jeff and I that we all needed to make sure we were on the same page before we went to Los Angeles.”

Jayson Werth, who like Bradley is in his second season with the team, spoke next. Then Eric Gagne, the senior Dodger, had something to say. Finally, Kent stepped forward and talked about what he believes is necessary to win.

1. Single gimmick: bringing out babes wearing Bush masks and dildos on stage to make important political statement.
2. Dreamworks A&R signing them after 3 songs at the Viper Room for being “visceral”.
3. Dreamworks dropping them after repeatedly warning them to stop doing the Bush masks and dildos (allegedly) and then getting hate emails from Dreamworks staffers.
4. Singer shot at and had ribs broken by guys in Dallas for the Bush masks and dildos.
5. Band member ODs *ON STAGE* at CB’s, presumably before they could bring out the Bush masks and dildos.
6. Pissing on Velvet Revolver by saying they didn’t want to open for them because it would have been like “the Clash opening for Kiss.”
7. Band very proud about not having listened to the MC5 and Stooges until they discovered Hole.

Dr. Pellman, who is also team doctor for the Jets and the Islanders and a former president of the National Football League Physicians Society, has said repeatedly in biographical statements that he has a medical degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

But Dr. Pellman attended medical school in Guadalajara, Mexico, and he received a medical degree from the New York State Education Department after a one-year residency at SUNY Stony Brook, state records show. He does not hold an M.D. from Stony Brook, according to Dan Rosett, a university hospital spokesman.

In papers sent to Harvard University for a seminar and to the House Committee on Government Reform, which held the hearings on steroids in baseball two weeks ago, Dr. Pellman identified himself as an associate clinical professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

But he is an assistant clinical professor, a lower-ranking and honorary position that is held by thousands of doctors, a medical college official said. Dr. Pellman does not teach at Albert Einstein.

In interviews this week, Dr. Pellman, 51, said he had not tried to mislead anybody about his credentials. He characterized the errors as minor and said he would correct them. And he primarily blamed other people, including his secretary and the Jets, for the discrepancies.

“In a way, I thank you, because those discrepancies are not important enough to be there, and they have all been fixed,” he said in a telephone interview yesterday.

But Dr. Dan Brock, director of Harvard Medical School’s Division of Medical Ethics, said, “If I told you I graduated from medical school in the United States, and I went to Guadalajara, then I think I would have deliberately misled you, so I would say that was unethical.”

When informed of the errors in Dr. Pellman’s biography, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, who is the ranking minority member on the House committee, said in a statement yesterday: “Major League Baseball told us Dr. Pellman was their foremost expert, but he was unable to answer even basic questions about the league’s steroid policy at the hearing. This new information raises further questions about his credibility and the credibility of baseball’s steroid policy.”

Robert White, a spokesman for Representative Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia, who is the chairman of the House committee, said he was “stunned” that baseball would send “a doctor with a questionable résumé.”

Rob Manfred, baseball’s executive vice president, said the errors were insignificant. He said Dr. Pellman had disclosed his Guadalajara education to baseball on his résumé. He said it was unfair to criticize Dr. Pellman for the false listing of an M.D. from SUNY in the “Reader’s Digest version” of his bio from the Jets.

With a .478 average in the Cactus League, he has a chance to be the Giants’ utility infielder when they open April 5. Dallimore (above) was a Class AAA All-Star last season at Fresno and hit .352 to win the Pacific Coast League batting championship in 2003.

•Luke Scott, Houston: Even though the Astros’ outfield competition was wide open at the start of spring training, Scott, 26 (above), who has never played a day in the majors, wasn’t a serious candidate.

Now he could be the Astros’ opening-day left fielder.

“Absolutely, he’s in the mix,” general manager Tim Purpura says. “He’s had tremendous at-bats against a lot of good pitching. Luke has come out of nowhere.”

Scott has 62 home runs in three minor league seasons.

That’s because Jones knows how serious of a temptation women can be.

“I don’t put myself in those situations because I don’t know how I’d react,” Jones said. “I just try to stay out of the situations — stay in my room, play a lot of Xbox, eat a lot of room service. That’s how I live, because I love my family. I love my wife, and I don’t want to do anything stupid.”

The measures Jones takes don’t come just from a devotion to his family. They also come from his devotion to God. As a Major League Baseball player, Jones wants to do his best to live a godly life, and he knows sexual sins don’t have any place there.

“Like any other guy, women are probably the biggest stumbling block,” he said.

Jones and his wife have been married for 15 years, and Jones has remained faithful to her.

Time is the enemy.

Progressive general manager Billy King’s purported blockbuster trade, consummated in the 11th hour with Allen Iverson approaching 30 and the Sixers fading toward a hybrid of the Doug Moe and Johnny Davis eras, has been a bust in the first month.

It’s too early in the adjustment process to assume the deal is a disaster, but in Iverson’s words you can hear the clock ticking – on his serious contending hopes, on the 32-year-old Webber, on embattled coach Jim O’Brien and on King. With the Sixers barely clinging to the last playoff spot, the trade chemistry has to start clicking.

“It has to happen right now,” Iverson said. “I’ve noticed improvement, but it has to happen right now. I can’t tell you that … we’ve got till next year to make it happen, because we don’t. I’ve got to believe that it’s gonna happen right now.”

After a string of misfits passed through as the Sixers’ second bananas, Iverson’s most accomplished ally ever – a five-time All-Star, a complete power forward with rare big-man passing ability and perimeter panache – may have arrived too late to provide a big lift. Webber’s bum knee history has robbed much of his athleticism, and with $62 million due him over the next three seasons, well, the Sixers and King may have one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel.

To plugged-in NBA people and infamously unforgiving Philly fans, it seems Webber has aged dramatically since he stepped off the plane from Sacramento. Maybe it’s the system. Maybe it’s the coach. Maybe it’s Webber’s knee.

Perhaps it’s all three. The first two you can change.

“He can’t go inside and score like he used to,” said an NBA executive. “Do I think it will work eventually? If he’s not really hurt, yeah. But $60 million, you can’t make that kind of mistake. If his knee’s OK, it’s a good trade. If it isn’t, it’s a horror show.

“If he gets close to 100 percent, he’ll absolutely help them,” said an Eastern Conference scout. “But he doesn’t look like he can move.”
Some scouts have their doubts about Iverson making this a strong marriage. It’s hard to knock a guy averaging a league-high 30.5 points and 7.7 assists, and further to doubt the sincerity of a guy who brings it every night and all but begged King to acquire Webber. But the turnstile of No. 2s who preceded Webber prompts critics to question whether The Answer can coexist with a true star.

A Western Conference scout who disliked the trade thinks Iverson could play with only two other superstars – Shaquille O’Neal and Jason Kidd. “He dribbles around too much, needs too many shots,” the scout said. “If I’m him, I’m taking 16-18 shots so I can get Webber more involved. But that’s not him.”

It came Sunday with a snarled answer from Chucky Atkins that silenced the locker room as soon as the words escaped his mouth. The question put to Atkins was what he would do as general manager to remake the 10th-place Lakers.

“I ain’t no GM,” Atkins said. “Ask Kobe. He’s the GM. It’s his team. Go ask him.”

Atkins, who has grown increasingly frustrated in recent weeks, was asked to clarify if he was, in fact, saying that Bryant was calling the shots for the organization.

“I don’t know,” Atkins said. “Last I heard they told me that (general manager) Mitch Kupchak was supposed to make the decisions around here. So you all going to ask him those questions, please.”

Atkins became the first Lakers player to call out Bryant this season and made his comments only a half-hour or so after interim coach Frank Hamblen had said morale on the team was “OK” despite eight consecutive losses.

“They seem to get along with one another still,” said Hamblen, who accused the team Thursday of quitting in the second half of a loss to Denver. “They listen to what you have to say, try and go out and do what you want them to do.”

With the Lakers all but certain to miss the playoffs for the first time in 11 years, Atkins was asked what should be done differently next season, and again his words spoke volumes.

“What would you do?” Atkins said. “You watched this (expletive) all year.”

Stoudamire, according to sources, is a free agent the Knicks will strongly consider this summer, even if Thomas selects a guard in the draft. Thomas wants to add quickness, experience and another ball handler to his backcourt. The addition of a player of Stoudamire’s caliber would allow Stephon Marbury to play more minutes at shooting guard.

Thomas has hinted that he wants to play a style similar to that of the Suns and SuperSonics, spreading the floor with three-point shooters and taking advantage of Marbury’s ability to drive to the basket. Thomas also envisions having three players – Marbury, Jamal Crawford and possibly Stoudamire – who can all play both guard positions.

“If that happens, it would be great,” Stoudamire said late Saturday night. “I definitely think the beauty of playing that way is that you have three guards that can pass, dribble and shoot. Isiah is molding the team the way he did in Toronto and like the team he played for in Detroit. Isiah, Joe Dumars and Vinnie Johnson all complemented each other.”

The 5-10 Stoudamire, who scored 25 points in Portland’s 103-96 victory over the Knicks on Saturday, long has been a favorite of Thomas, who drafted Stoudamire 12 years ago with the Raptors. Stoudamire, who will turn 32 in September, is not expected to re-sign with the Blazers this summer. The uncertainty surrounding Allan Houston’s arthritic knee – the Knicks would prefer that the veteran guard retire – and Crawford’s inconsistency give the Knicks reason to want to add a veteran player with Stoudamire’s resume.

“I’ve got some history with a lot of the guys that run the team in New York, Isiah, Brendan Suhr, and I even played with Herb (Williams) for (one game) in Toronto,” Stoudamire said. “It’s something me and my agent will definitely look at. At the end of the day it’s something I will definitely listen to.”

Stoudamire’s agent is Aaron Goodwin, who also represents Crawford as well as Vin Baker, whom the Knicks signed to a two-year, $7 million contract last summer. Baker was eventually traded to the Houston Rockets in the Maurice Taylor deal. Thomas has a good working relationship with Goodwin, but his friendships with Stoudamire and Goodwin may not mean much if and when the two sides begin negotiating.

Bob Klapisch: That all really depends on how much money the Mets make available to Omar. It is remarkable, and this goes back to the Duquette discussion, that under Jim Duquette’s administration the Mets were only given an eighty million dollar payroll. Duquette basically had to trim forty million dollars, get rid of bad contracts, and be competitive all at once — which is a nearly impossible task. Now, under Omar, the Mets’ payroll is suddenly over one hundred million dollars again. Where the Mets got that extra twenty to twenty-five million dollars is a mystery to me. It’s possible that the Wilpons had it and they just decided to let Omar spend it after withholding it from Duquette, or some people theorize that the money is coming from Time Warner and Comcast, to help the run up to the new network next year and to put a competitive and watchable product on the field. Either way, there is money on the table right now, and if you’re willing to spend one hundred million dollars every year, you’ll be able to chase some big name free agents, as well as develop talent. If that’s what the Wilpons are willing to do, then Met fans can look forward to a pretty good team year after year after year. That’s assuming that they make some smart decisions with that money, but first and foremost if there’s money to spend. So, I don’t know if this winter was an aberration or not, I don’t know if it was a one-year spike just to coincide with next year’s network. But if this is a barometer, then there are good things coming down the road for the Mets and Mets fans.

MetsGeek.com: Now, most Mets fans have heard and/or believe that the Mets have built their teams with an eye towards making the back pages, making the splashy signing, competing with the Yankees, etc. How much, if any, impact do you think the New York media has on the Mets’ decision-makers?

Few, if any, of these people are Jewish.

“About thirty years ago, the other teams’ supporters started calling us Jews because there was a history of Jews in Ajax,” explained Fred Harris, a stocky man with brush-cut hair and a thick gold chain around his neck, “so we took it up as a point of pride and now it has become our identity.”

For years, the team’s management supported that unique identity. But over time what seemed to many people like a harmless – if peculiar – custom has taken on a more sinister tone. Fans of Ajax’s biggest rivals began giving the Nazis’ signature straight-arm salute or chanting “Hamas, Hamas!” to provoke Ajax supporters.Ajax games have been marred by shouts of “Jews to the gas!” or simply hissing to simulate the sound of gas escaping.

The most disturbing displays have come during games against teams from The Hague or Amsterdam’s greatest rival, Rotterdam. But even Eindhoven fans get into the act: not long after the game started, a chant arose from the corner section of the city’s stadium reserved for fans of the opposing team.

“Everyone who’s not jumping is a Jew!” the crowd cried over and over again as thousands of people in the section jumped up and down.

Ajax games have become so charged with such anti-Semitic displays that many of the team’s Jewish fans now avoid the games altogether. The offensive behavior is not one-sided: during a game against a German team late last year, a group of Ajax supporters displayed a banner that read “Jews take revenge for ‘40-’45,” a reference to the Holocaust.

“We were probably too tolerant,” said Uri Coronel, a Jew who was a member of Ajax’s board in the 1990’s, speaking about the management’s past attitude.

Since then, the atmosphere at the games has become “unbearable,” he said, adding that the fans’ adoption of a Jewish identity is widely misunderstood as something positive.

“A lot of Jews all over the world believe that Ajax fans are proud to call themselves Jews, but it’s a kind of hooliganism,” he said.

There is no clear reason why Ajax, founded in 1900, became known as a Jewish club. Amsterdam has always had the largest Jewish population in the Netherlands and the club had two Jewish presidents in the 1960’s and 1970’s. It has had Jewish players at various times. The club, which owns 73 percent of the listed company that owns the team, also has some Jews among its 400 members, but no greater a percentage than their representation in the city’s general population. There are no Jews on the club’s current board.

“The club has no real Jewish origins,” said John C. Jaakke, the club’s dapper president, speaking before the Eindhoven game.

Nonetheless, the club became identified in the public mind with Jews in the 1950’s, and by the 1970’s, opposing fans began to call Ajax supporters Jews. The supporters adopted the identity in a spirit of defiance.

According to numerous UK players afterward, the plan was for Rondo to work the clock down to around eight seconds, then attack the basket by driving the lane.

Said Chuck Hayes: “We wanted Rajon to drive, put the ball on the rim and then me, Randolph (Morris) and Kelenna would attack the glass.”

But, instead, Michigan State jammed the lane. Rondo couldn’t penetrate and wound up pitching the ball to Azubuike on the wing.

The 6-foot-5 junior said he thought he saw three seconds on the clock when he received the ball. Under heavy defensive pressure, Azubuike chose to drive the ball toward the baseline.

“I should’ve just risen up and shot it,” he said later in a subdued Kentucky locker room. “But I thought I could create space and get a shot.”

He didn’t.

With the Final Four on the line, the clock expired without UK getting a shot.

Said Smith: “You hand it to Kelenna and hope he would jump up and shoot it – but he didn’t.”

Tournament basketball is packed with ironies. Tubby Smith is one of the best late-game situation coaches I’ve ever seen, but, in basketball terms, this was pretty much the unpardonable sin.

The Final Four on the line and you don’t get a shot?

For Tubby – whose team gave one of the biggest-hearted efforts any Kentucky team ever has in a big game – this will be the second-guess equivalent of Rick Pitino’s decision not to put a man on the inbounds passer in the famous 1992 “Christian Laettner” game.

A lot of this will be unfair. But a captain goes down with his ship, and a coach is responsible for the outcome of late-game situations.

About Yankees magic and mythology, about the last four years of disappointment, ridiculously heightened expectations and even more ridiculously increased expenditures.

Pettitte enjoyed an unofficial Yankees homecoming yesterday, at Legends Field rather than Yankee Stadium, and he received a pleasant ovation, more sitting than standing, as he took the mound. Once he began to pitch, he looked like someone recovering from left elbow surgery, indicated not so much by the two-run homer he surrendered to Alex Rodriguez as the fact he mixed in 26 balls among his 60 pitches.

And yes, he looked a tad gray, plenty of such rebellious strands integrating among the browns on his head. Like the rest of us (in the spirit of fairness, we are going bald rather than gray), he’s getting older.

“I’m not where I want to be,” Pettitte (above) said after his four-inning performance. “I want to be strong. I want to feel like I’m 100 percent. It’s still a work in progress. I’d be lying if I sat here and told everybody that I felt awesome.”

Can you imagine the panic that would be set off in New York had he said that while under George Steinbrenner’s employ, with just a week to go before Opening Day? Could you envision Pettitte starting April 6 against the Red Sox while on a limited pitch count?

You can say that the Yankees lack the “magic” they seemed to possess from 1996 through 2001. That’s easy, and not altogether inaccurate.

The harder part is figuring out what they could have done in order to keep the magic going.

Certainly, for example, they made the right call in cutting bait on Pettitte when they did. The same goes for their decisions on saying goodbye to Scott Brosius, David Cone, Joe Girardi, Jimmy Key, Chuck Knoblauch, Tino Martinez, Ramiro Mendoza, Mike Stanton and John Wetteland.

Kimery says he has sold about 100 of the little silver bits of metal that screw into the back of most televisions, allowing people to filter Fox News from their sets. The Tulsa, Okla., resident also has received thousands of e-mails, both angry and complimentary, as well as a few death threats since the device debuted in August.

“Apparently the making of terroristic threats against those who don’t share your views is a high art form among a certain core audience,” said Kimery, 45.

Formerly a registered Republican, even a precinct captain, Kimery became an independent in the 1990s when he said the state party stopped taking input from everyday members.

Kimery now contends Fox News’ top-level management dictates a conservative journalistic bias, that inaccuracies never are retracted, and what airs is more opinion than news.

“I might as well be reading tabloids out of the grocery store,” he said. “Anything to get a rise out of the viewer and to reinforce certain retrograde notions.”

Suffering from bouts of depression, he said he had considered suicide.

Another, in Texas, said he had volunteered many times to go to Iraq rather than face ridicule, rejection and the Army’s wrath.

“The recruiter is stuck in the situation where you’re not going to make mission, it just won’t happen,” the New York recruiter said. “And you’re getting chewed out every day for it. It’s horrible.”

Recruiters have “the only military occupation that deals with the civilian world entirely,” said Charles Moskos, a military sociologist at Northwestern University.

Even before the war, recruiters contacted on average of 120 people before landing an active-duty recruit, Army data showed. That number is growing, recruiters said.

One recruiter in the New York area said that when he steps outside his office for a cigarette, he often is barraged with epithets from passers-by angry about the war.

In January, the brother-in-law of a prospective recruit lashed into him. “He swore at me,” the recruiter said, “and said that he would rather have his brother-in-law in jail for selling crack than in the Army.”

“There’s been some pretty good postseasons over the years,” Phil Garner, the Houston manager, said. “But in terms of hitting the ball as hard as you can possibly hit it and hitting it out of the ballpark, I haven’t seen anything like that.”

Yet in 90 regular-season games after the Astros acquired him from Kansas City, Beltran batted only .258.

“This is your free-agent year and you have a chance to make a lot of money,” Garner said, seeking a reason for Beltran’s mediocre performance. “That might have been a personal self-induced pressure. When he got in the playoffs, all things went out the window and he was playing to win. He wasn’t playing for himself; he was just playing to win and things started happening for him. He was in a zone that people die for.”

When the time came for the Astros to try to keep Beltran as their center fielder, they offered $105 million for seven years, but they didn’t offer the no-trade protection he wanted. When they recently signed Berkman, he asked for and received that provision.

“That has been misunderstood to a great extent,” General Manager Tim Purpura said of the Beltran negotiations. “If we could have gotten a deal done, that’s something we probably would have given him, but we never got a deal done. Berkman is a young man who grew up in Houston. He expressed an interest to stay with us the rest of his career.”

The book also details a well-known tale in which Marbury and Telfair went 1-on-1 on the project playgrounds a few years ago before a sizeable crowd. It was a physical battle in which they traded hurtful insults and Telfair schooled his older cousin.

When asked about the playground duel, Telfair (above) got angry, saying yesterday, “It was a basketball game we played against each other. You’re not going to get me saying something that will come between our family.”

Marbury believes the Telfairs have changed their tune since Sebastian turned pro. Marbury has a big family and supports his wife, kids, mother, father, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews.

“It’s hard because everybody wants something,” Marbury said. “We knew they’d do a 360. It’s new to them. But we’ve been going through the last nine years and we know what it’s about.”

Marbury claims his family is unfazed. “We don’t, especially against family, hold grudges like that,” he said.

Despite being armed with a guaranteed contract for 2005 worth $2.5 million US, Ligtenberg knows he’s a long shot to make the club as one of the seven relievers.

Competition for the final two spots in the bullpen has been fierce and Ligtenberg, coming off a miserable injury-plagued season, could find himself the odd man out.

“There’s definitely a battle going on and they want to take the guys that are throwing the best and I understand that,” Ligtenberg said yesterday. “I know my situation and I’m probably on the bubble right now.

“I don’t think they really want to eat the salary but it’s something they may be willing to do if I’m not throwing that well.”

Health-wise, Ligtenberg says there’s no lingering effects from the inflammation in his left hip that pretty much crippled his season last year when he was 1-6 with a 6.38 ERA.

“The hip feels good,” he said. “The first 10 days I wasn’t feeling real good and we made an adjustment. The last three weeks my hip has been good, it hasn’t been an issue.

“After last year I feel like I really want to be here to prove at least to the fans that I don’t suck that bad.”

But the hip remains a cross Ligtenberg will have to bear until he proves otherwise and that doesn’t help his chances either with the Jays or elsewhere. There isn’t much of a market for 33-year-old relievers coming off a dreadful year with a hip problem.

“I kind of knew coming in we’ve got some young guys with good arms and great stuff and I knew it was going to be a fight,” he said. “Regardless of what happens, I’m just going to keep working hard. I’m not going to pout about it. I know I can still pitch. But it’s not my decision and I can’t worry about it.

“I know I can still get guys out.”

It’s been a regular occurrence this spring, reporters gathering around Ponson and asking him questions about his off-the-field behavior. The pitcher finally got sick of it Friday, and made no effort to mask his displeasure.

X-rays were negative, and Martínez maintained that the problem was minor and that he would be ready for the regular-season opener on April 4 against the Cincinnati Reds.

“I’m just doing what anybody would do in spring training, play it safe,” Martínez said. “I’ll work on it and will still have time to continue or finish the job we have been doing in spring training. That’s simply it. This is no big deal. Anybody, after a long time in spring training, could get a dead arm, back stiffness, ankle, shin splints, stuff like that.”

Martínez last pitched on Sunday and said he took a rare day off from his work routine on Monday. He said he thought he might have overdone it on Tuesday.

“I should have done a little something Monday,” he said. “Tuesday, I piled up one hour of running, plus the weights, the med ball and all the things you do with your lower back.”

Manager Willie Randolph said Martínez would most likely start on Tuesday against the Washington Nationals. That would allow him to have a full complement of rest before opening day.

Martínez said he would play it by ear in determining when he would pitch again. “Right now, we just don’t want to take any chances of making it any worse and put opening day in any jeopardy,” he said. “Opening day without a doubt. If I play it careful, I will be there.”

General Manager Omar Minaya said the decision to scratch Martínez from his start reflected the team’s conservative philosophy for spring-training games.

Much the same goes for the infield defense. With Kaz Matsui playing second base for the first time in his career alongside Jose Reyes, who has far more talent than experience, you’d ideally like to see the Mets front office devise ways to minimize what could be a weakness. Instead, they’ve come up with a way to ensure there will be a tremendous amount of runners on first base, which will just put more pressure on a double-play combination that already has more than enough.

On Saturday, during an interview with KSLG-AM in St. Louis, Wayne Hagin (above, right) , a Cardinals radio play-by-play man, said Colorado Rockies first baseman Todd Helton had used “the juice” early in his career. Hagin was a Rockies voice from 1997-2002.

“I know he (Helton) tried it because (former Colorado manager) Don Baylor told me, ‘I told him to get off the juice – you’re a player who doesn’t need that. Get off it. It’s made you into a robot at first base defensively,’” Hagin said on KSLG-AM. “And (it) may have altered his swing. He got off it.”

Helton vehemently denied Hagin’s allegation. The broadcaster backtracked, saying he was referring to Helton’s use of creatine, not steroids. Helton wasn’t buying Hagin’s explanation and indicated he might sue the announcer.

Hagin’s big mouth not only presents a predicament for all baseball voices, but sets up a huge dichotomy in the Cardinals’ broadcast booth. At one end is Hagin, who is not averse to going public with information he has heard – no matter how inaccurate. At the other is Joe Buck who, in January, told HBO’s “Real Sports” that if he found out a St. Louis player was on steroids he would not report it.

“I’m not in a position, as the Cardinal announcer, to break stories,” Buck said. “… I’m not a journalist.”

Spoken like a true spokesman for Budweiser.

Baseball’s corporate sponsors, and companies that advertise on a local basis, no doubt would like team broadcasters to take Buck’s speak-no-evil approach. That way, the subject of steroids would not cut through the airwaves on a warm summer night. It also will mean certain voices are sitting on information and not truly serving fans.

No one is looking for any baseball voice to take Hagin’s irresponsible, slanderous approach. And yet, if any baseball broadcaster has facts, or wants to offer an opinion on baseball’s steroid controversy, he should be encouraged to bring it to the microphone.

Even if Daddy lets him keep his job a few more years.

“I don’t know what the opposite of the Midas touch is,” said Mayor Bloomberg’s press secretary, Ed Skyler, “but whatever it is, he has it.”

Already, perhaps no one has done more to devastate the New York sporting scene than Junior Dolan, chairman, president and chief executive officer of the lucky sperm society.

His leadership is so putrid, it smacks of sabotage. Now, apparently unsatisfied with contaminating half the major sports in New York, Dolan is spreading his plague by demonstrating a blind determination to kill the Jets’ goal of building a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan.

If Junior Dolan succeeds, that would leave baseball as the only major sport he hasn’t polluted. Although he tried hard. The Dolans once endeavored to buy the Yankees, and can you imagine this boob of the tube sitting in George Steinbrenner’s chair? Under Dolan, the Yankees would be Tampa Bay with a $200-million payroll.

If Dolan succeeds at destroying the West Side dream – and if anyone’s due for a win, it’s him – he’d be hurting not only the Jets by leaving them as second-class interlopers in the Giants’ home park in Joisey but also the City of New York by simultaneously crushing its chances of hosting the 2010 Super Bowl and the 2012 Olympics.

That the NFL consecutively awarded the Super Bowl to bland Jacksonville and frigid Detroit shouldn’t lead anyone to question the game’s enormous value. Brian McCarthy, director of corporate communications for the NFL, said the Super Bowl generates between $300 million and $400 million in revenue. With the Olympics another possibility, it isn’t hard to see how the West Side project could pay for itself.

Starting with that whopper of a $600-million bill that’ll go to taxpayers, there are some real arguments to be made for opposing the West Side project. But if anyone believes Junior Dolan is doing this for philanthropic reasons, they’ve never received a cable bill from him. His hard-to-figure motivation smacks of self-interest (and perhaps a little envy, given that he was a runner-up when Woody Johnson bought the Jets).

Besides the reported $600-million-plus bid he made for the site for what seems to be a very murky purpose (schools, housing), Dolan reportedly has spent $20 million on anti-stadium ads. That’s a mind-boggling figure, considering how little the project would seem to impact his own downtrodden organization. Anyway, it’s play money to him, as he’ll surely pass on the cost to Long Island cable customers who have no way out.

t’s not as if the players will be interested in the friendlies against the US and Colombia in May anyway. Top players only want to play in games that matter because they’re competitive animals and they’ll want this even less at the end of the season.

I went on a similar tour once with Scotland to Canada to play three games and it was torture. I was at Aberdeen and had played 67 times that season so I didn’t want to be there, and it will be the same for these guys.

I think Eriksson has said the tour gives England a good chance to play opposition from outside Europe. But I don’t imagine the players will learn anything. How interested are Colombia going to be? And anyway, there are no surprises these days.

England’s top players are facing South Americans in the Champions League all the time because the best Brazilians, Argentinians and so on are in Europe. They know each other so well now that they’re the best of mates. You can see that from the way they shake hands after matches.

That the World Cup is in Germany means there will be European surfaces, familiar weather and more of a European mentality, so there’s no reason in going to America. If Sven wants to make a few points to his players next summer get them together and talk about it.

The only people who will want the tour will be a few press men and FA officials who fancy a couple of weeks away from the missus, and the finance people. The only reason to go is finance.

The only people who will want the tour will be a few press men and FA officials who fancy a couple of weeks away from the missus, and the finance people. The only reason to go is finance.