A Honus bonus...the Dipper finally gets his due...Wilander makes a racket

Tripled
California Angel pitcher Jim Abbott, in a spring training game against the San Francisco Giants, in Scottsdale, Ariz. Abbott, who was born without a right hand, hammered a Rick Reuscbel fastball 375 feet on the fly to right centerfield. Abbott has batted only seven times since high school, but at Flint (Mich.) Central he hit .400 as a pitcher and first baseman.

Skied
To victory in the women's World Cup giant slalom in Waterville, N.H., Julie Parisien, giving the U.S. its first World Cup win since 1987. Parisien, who was seeded 22nd, had a two-run combined time of 1:58.47, which was .44 of a second faster than Ulrike Maier of Austria. Following the race, Italy's downhill heartthrob, Alberto Tomba, sidled up to Parisien near the finish line for a photo shoot. "He passed me in the hall at the hotel two days ago and walked right by," said Parisien. "But after my second run, he came over and gave me a big kiss on the cheek. He is such a picture pig."

Ejected
From his third game this season, Los Angeles Kings coach Tom Webster, after he slugged Calgary Flame center Doug Gilmour during a first-period brawl on March 23. Webster's involvement in the fight so angered Calgary players that they dislodged a Plexiglas divider separating the benches in order to get at the Kings. The melee, which took 20 minutes to subdue, resulted in 196 penalty minutes.

Kicked Off
A 17-city Swedish rock-concert tour, by tennis star Mats Wilander and his six-member band, Wilander. A guitarist who has played with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Wilander traded his 1988 French Open trophy to Sting for a Grammy Award. "All people have the right to enjoy a hobby," said Mans Ivarsson of Expressen, Sweden's largest newspaper. "But there is a limit—like charging $15 for a show like this."

Purchased
A Piedmont Cigarettes Honus Wagner baseball card, circa 1910, for $410,000, by Los Angeles Kings center Wayne Gretzky and Kings owner Bruce McNall. The bid, made at a Sotheby's auction in New York City, set a record for the highest price ever paid for an item of sports memorabilia, breaking the 1989 mark of $115,000 for another Honus Wagner card. To date, fewer than 40 Wagner cards have surfaced, and there have been just two with the Piedmont backing. "This was not a rational price," said Mark Friedland, a collector from Aspen, Colo., who bailed out when the bidding reached $405,000. "But this is a piece of history. It would be like the Declaration of Independence coming tip for auction."

Retired
By the Philadelphia 76ers, the number 13 jersey of Wilt Chamberlain, 54. Chamberlain, who played center in Philly from 1959 to '62 and then from '65 to '68, had earlier refused to allow his number to be retired, claiming that former Sixer owner Irv Kosloff reneged on a promise by his predecessor, Ike Richman, to make Chamberlain a part owner of the team.

PHOTO

JOSE LUIS VILLEGAS/SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

Abbott proved he's a pitcher with pop.