For The Record

ENDED The search for Bobby Fischer. The 61-year-old grand master
has been on the lam from U.S. authorities since 1992, when he
traveled to Yugoslavia for a rematch with Boris Spassky in
violation of United Nations sanctions against that country. His
passport was revoked by the State Department last December, and
on July 13 he was detained at Narita Airport outside Tokyo when
he attempted to board a flight to the Philippines. Japanese
immigration officials are still deciding whether to deport
Fischer to the U.S.

RETIRED At age 28, due to a recurring back injury, Marcelo Rios,
the only man to gain tennis's top ranking without winning a Grand
Slam title. A diminutive Chilean lefty, Rios topped the charts in
1998, becoming the first South American to be ranked No. 1.
Though he could be legendarily surly--he allegedly once told
Monica Seles to move her "fat butt" out of a Wimbledon lunch line
and was designated "the most hated man in tennis" by SI--Rios
seemed mellowed by his marriage in 2000 and the birth of his
daughter. "It is very sad for me to accept that I must leave
tennis," he said last week. "It has been the passion of my life."

DEPLOYED By Buenos Aires provincial police, a special 16-person
security detail to protect the family of Spurs guard and
Argentine Olympic team member Manu Ginobili (left), who became
the country's highest-paid athlete when he signed a reported
six-year, $52 million contract extension last Thursday. Two days
earlier authorities--acting on a tip from a prison
inmate--intercepted a phone call in which a plot to kidnap
Ginobili's relatives was discussed. Abduction threats are an
occupational hazard for athletes and celebrities in Argentina,
which has been racked with crime since its 2001 economic
collapse. In March soccer star Juan Jose Serrizuela was held by
kidnappers overnight, and last fall the father of another famed
futbolista, Christian Traverso, spent two weeks in captivity.

DIED David Webb Chaney, 88, who, as head of the team that
invented Astroturf, was responsible for indoor major league
baseball and millions of welcome mats. A research chemist, Chaney
was dean of North Carolina State's textile school from 1967 to
'81. His legacy, however, is the work he did in the early 1960s
for the Chemstrand Company, a synthetic textiles firm. To satisfy
a Ford Foundation request for the perfect urban playing surface,
Chaney's team, after years of tinkering to gain proper traction
and drainage, developed Chemgrass in 1964. Two years later it was
laid down in the Astrodome, where real grass had withered in the
sunless environment, and renamed Astroturf. Within a decade the
sports landscape was covered with the stuff--much to the chagrin
of purists and turf-toe sufferers. Though artificial turf's
popularity has declined, Astroturf is still a leader in the
crowded synthetic surface market.

DIED Joe Gold, 82, founder of Gold's Gym and World Gym and, as
mentor and trainer of such bodybuilders as Lou Ferrigno and the
governor of the Golden State, one of the fathers of the fitness
revolution. His original beachside gym in Venice, Calif., which
opened in 1965, became a mecca for serious weightlifters--notably
a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. "Joe looked after me and
encouraged me," Schwarzenegger said last week. "He was a trusted
friend and father figure."

COLOR PHOTO: ROBERT BECK (GINOBLI)

B/W PHOTO: COURTESY WORLD GYM (GOLD)