Sports Beat

Instead of the next Pele, Mallory Snyder will try to become the
next Puck. The 19-year-old daughter of former Falcons wide
receiver Todd Snyder gave up a full soccer scholarship at Iowa
State and left the school before this spring semester to become a
cast member on the 13th season of MTV's The Real World, which
began airing on June 3 and is set in Paris. (She's the
inexperienced hottie who is holding off on sex until she finds
true love.) Snyder, a midfielder who played in 12 games last year
as a freshman for the Cyclones, told the Chicago Sun-Times, "I've
been playing soccer for so long that it just got to the point
where I wasn't sure if I could stick out. This was kind of an
opportunity to set my life on a different path."

--German soccer god Franz Beckenbauer, 57, is expecting his fifth
child and his second with Heidi Burmester, a former secretary at
Bayern Munich, the soccer team for which Beckenbauer starred, and
which he has been president of since 1994. Beckenbauer and
Burmester have a two-year-old son, Joel Maximilian, and last year
Beckenbauer left his wife of 12 years--Sybille, with whom he has
three sons--to be with Burmester. "We have a big house, we still
have plenty of space, even for a whole kindergarten," Beckenbauer
told the German newspaper Bild.

--He's still perhaps best known as the fully Afroed Carver High
hoops star James Hayward on the classic TV series The White
Shadow, so maybe it's not surprising that director Thomas Carter
(Save the Last Dance), 50, is heading back to the court. Carter
is in negotiations with Paramount to direct Back in the Day, a
film based on Richmond (Calif.) High School basketball coach Ken
Carter, who made national headlines in 1999 for locking his
players out of practices and games when they failed to maintain a
2.3 GPA.

--Bend it like Farrell? Soccer fans no doubt gasped when Irish
actor Colin Farrell grabbed the broken right wrist (it's in a
cast) of presenter David Beckham while accepting the award for
Best Transatlantic Breakthrough at the MTV Movie Awards. "Oh,
f---, what have I done?" Farrell blurted. Becks flinched, but he
then assured Farrell that he was fine.... Rams coach Mike Martz
held a barbecue at his split-level house outside St. Louis last
Friday, and the 75 guests included ex-Cardinals Stan Musial and
Whitey Herzog and SI's Peter King. Musial, 83, dressed in a sport
coat and collared shirt, entertained the party with his
harmonica, playing America the Beautiful, My Country 'Tis of Thee
(which the 72-year-old Herzog sang loudly) and Wabash Cannonball.
"Dizzy Dean taught me how to play that one," Musial said.... Do
you believe in remakes? Twenty-two years after Karl Malden played
gruff hockey coach Herb Brooks, who led the 1980 U.S. team to
Olympic gold, in the TV movie Miracle on Ice, Kurt Russell is
tackling the same role in a movie of the same name. Disney will
release the new Miracle in February.... The latest point of
contention in Jeff Gordon's divorce case is whether the NASCAR
star should be entitled to a larger-than-usual share of marital
assets because his occupation requires him to risk his life.
Lawyers for Gordon's wife, Brooke, submitted documents showing
that race car driving is a safer trade than construction,
transportation and commercial ... fishing.

COLOR PHOTO: RUDY ARCHULETTA (MALLORY) Mallory gets Real

COLOR PHOTO: TOM FOX/THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS (PICTURE THIS) PICTURE THIS That's what you call an unhealthy glow. Andy Natalie, a crewman for Tomas Scheckter (and apparently a big fat liar), got hosed down after his pants--and other things--caught fire during a pit stop at the IRL Bombardier 500 in Fort Worth, Texas. Scheckter pulled out of the pits while the fuel hose was attached to his car, dousing Natalie with gas, and a spark from the exhaust did the rest. Natalie was unhurt.

COLOR PHOTO: JOHN MARSHALL MANTEL/AP (FUNNY CIDE)

THIS WEEK'S SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE

Police in Norway stopped a 94-year-old runner because they
thought she had escaped from a nursing home.

THEY SAID IT
BARCLAY TAGG

Trainer of Funny Cide (left), after the horse finished third in
the Belmont Stakes (page 42), thus failing to complete the Triple
Crown. "I don't know what happened, and he won't tell me."