The Beat

It may not be about the bra, but that didn't stop her from putting a picture of said undergarment on the cover. Brandi Chastain, the U.S. soccer player who famously ripped off her jersey at the 1999 World Cup, has just published It's Not about the Bra: How to Play Hard, Play Fair, and Put the Fun Back into Competitive Sports, a book about youth sports. "Competition breeds a type of aggressive behavior," writes Chastain (below) in the introduction. "What separates the good from the bad is a person's ability to remember where the line is, and not cross it." As for the bra, it was recently voted the most famous bra in sports by The Times of London (beating out Anna Kournikova's Shock Absorber and Janet Jackson's malfunctioning bra at Super Bowl XXXVIII). Chastain, 36, says she was offered "serious money" for it but keeps it tucked away in a drawer at home.

■He was banging the skins in front of a huge, raucous crowd, but last Saturday was anything but the same ol' situation for Tommy Lee. The former Mötley Crüe drummer, who's taking classes in Lincoln as part of a forthcoming NBC reality show about his life on campus, performed with the Nebraska band in front of 77,881 fans at halftime of the Huskers' 59-27 rout of Baylor. (He wore a band uniform.) The tattooed bad boy, who dropped out of high school in Hollywood to give music a try, also shot hot dogs into the stands during the first quarter from a cannon called Der Viener Schlinger. "It's awesome, dude," Lee said. "You can launch a wiener in there."

■NBA training camp usually means hard work, but not the sort that involves the phrase "Would you like fries with that?" Still, as part of a campaign to get fans excited about the season, members of the Jazz have been spending their afternoons working regular jobs in the community. Matt Harpring worked the drive-thru at Wendy's, Mehmet Okur bagged groceries and Carlos Arroyo (page 74) and Jason Miskiri put in time at a car dealership. "The least we can do is meet some of the people who pay money to come and see us," said Arroyo.... The Talented Mr. Armstrong? Good Will Pedaling? Producer Frank Marshall has approached Matt Damon about starring in a Lance Armstrong biopic. Damon, a cycling fan who has sported the yellow Live Strong bracelet this summer, is mulling the offer for the film version of Armstrong's book It's Not about the Bike but says the training it would take "would be a whole new level." ... During last Saturday's 19-8 rout of his beloved Red Sox by the Yankees, Stephen King told a TV interviewer he was hoping for a "rally in the ninth with a walk-off winner by David Ortiz. I believe in suspense, but I also believe in happy endings." It didn't happen, of course, and to add to his misery, the final three outs were registered by Tom Gordon, the former Sox closer who was featured prominently in King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, which was recently rereleased as a pop-up book. King's next book has him returning to the horror genre: Faithful, to be published in December, chronicles the 2004 Red Sox season.

They Said It

RADU DEMERGIU

Romanian man who was nearly hit by a TV that a neighbor threw out a window after the national team lost a World Cup soccer qualifying match: "I was shocked. But when he told me he had been watching football, I completely understood."

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LISA O'CONNOR/ZUMA PRESS, INC. (CHASTAIN)

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JAMIE SQUIRE/GETTY IMAGES (PICTURE THIS)

PICTURE THIS

  The most challenging part of managing in the postseason these days? Remembering who gets a fist bump and who gets a bow during pregame introductions. Cardinals skipper Tony La Russa and outfielder So Taguchi exchanged a traditional Japanese greeting before Game 3 of the National League Championship Series. But it was Houston's Carlos Beltran (page 48) who took a bow after the game: He homered in a 5-2 win.

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CHRIS TROTMAN/GETTY IMAGES (APOCALYPSE)

THIS WEEK'S SIGN OF THEAPOCALYPSE