Sports Beat

Baseball Hall Of Fame president Dale Petroskey blinked first in
his spat with Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon. The Hall canceled a
screening of Bull Durham because of the antiwar views of the
couple, who met on the set of the 1988 movie. "We didn't want
people to espouse their views in a very public place," Petroskey
said. After being criticized by people on both ends of the
political spectrum who thought Robbins had a right to state his
opinion, Petroskey admitted that he should have simply called the
couple and asked them to keep politics out of the event. Had he
done that, "I would have said, 'Relax, Dale, it's not gonna
happen,'" says Robbins, who went on the Today show on Monday to
discuss the controversy with Matt Lauer. "I have many friends who
are athletes. I've never talked about politics with Mike Piazza
or Robin Ventura or Mark Messier. I use sports as a respite from
this stuff. The Bull Durham press junket in '89 was one of the
very few junkets where I didn't say anything to the press about
what was going on in the world."

Mets catcher Mike Piazza, whose relationship with Playmate of the
Millennium Darlene Bernaola ended three years ago, is back on
Hugh Hefner's turf. The 34-year-old slugger is dating Alicia
Rickter, 30, who was Playboy's Miss October 1995 before going on
to a career that has included acting on Baywatch and modeling on
The Price Is Right. The happy couple recently attended a bowling
charity event sponsored by Piazza's teammate John Franco. The
only potential hang-up: Piazza has Bernaola's name tattooed on
his ankle.

Olympic track star Marion Jones, 27, knows that the baby she and
her boyfriend, 100-meter world-record holder Tim Montgomery, are
expecting in July will slow her career, but it won't hold her
back for long. Jones, who won five medals at the Sydney Games in
2000, will skip the 2003 outdoor track season--which will
probably cost her at least $1 million in appearance fees and
prize money--but she's planning to start training this fall for
the 2004 Olympics in Athens.... Some fighters never learn.
Sylvester Stallone, who cowrote and costarred with Dolly Parton
in the 1984 song-and-dance flop Rhinestone (his performance
earned him a worst-actor Razzie), wants to make Rocky into a
Broadway musical. He's hired Thomas Meehan (The Producers and
Hairspray) to write the script. No word on whether there will be
a number called Yo, Adrian.... The Wizards honored several
members of the 1978 NBA championship Bullets team in a halftime
ceremony on April 9. Included in that group was guard Tom
Henderson, who retired in 1983 but is busier than ever, and not
just at his job as an administrator at a youth-services agency.
Henderson, 51, and his wife, Denolis, have taken in more than 60
foster children over the past 17 years. "I got into it because of
my wife," says Henderson. "But I got so attached to the kids."
... The telegenic Lisa Guerrero is leaving Fox Sports Net's Best
Damn Sports Show Period to pursue a career in acting.... The
latest man to be linked romantically with Britney Spears is Phil
Maloof, a 36-year-old teetotaler and former New Mexico state
senator whose family owns the Sacramento Kings.

COLOR PHOTO: FRED VUICH (AUGUSTA) PICTURE THIS With rain and protesters compounding the usual pressure, you had to have true grit to get through this year's Masters. Maybe that's why August National workers were spraying sand around. They said it was to improve traction for spectators--one of whom got some souvenir sand in the cuffs last Thursday while walking between the 2nd and 7th holes on the course.

COLOR PHOTO: JOHN BARRETT/GLOBE PHOTOS (PIAZZA) Piazza's good catch

COLOR PHOTO: EZRA SHAW/GETTY IMAGES/NHLI (SMITH)

THIS WEEK'S SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE

A professional soccer game in Austria was delayed 20 minutes
while six security guards tried to catch a piglet that ran onto
the pitch.

THEY SAID IT
STEVE STAIOS

Oilers defenseman, on teammate Jason Smith (left): "The guy's
amazing. He has the pain threshold of a dead animal."