Sports Briefs October 26, 2010
Football
Brett Favre's ironman streak has endured a litany of injuries and even a pair of premature retirement press conferences.
Perhaps this is the week that, finally, Favre's health prevents him from playing.
The 41-year-old Minnesota quarterback has a stress fracture in his left ankle that could end his NFL-record streak at 291 consecutive games started - 315 including the playoffs.
Vikings coach Brad Childress said Monday an MRI on Favre's foot revealed the stress fracture as well as an "avulsion" fracture in the heel bone. An avulsion fracture occurs when a fragment of bone is torn away by a tendon or ligament. Childress said neither injury requires surgery.
"He's got a great pain threshold and also great competitive zeal," Childress said, succinctly summing up Favre's legacy of durability.
Favre is also the subject of an NFL investigation into allegations that he sent lewd photographs and suggestive messages to a female New York Jets employee in 2008, a development that first put his streak in danger with the possibility of a suspension under the league's personal conduct policy.
n One week after drawing heavy fines for illegal hits, James Harrison and Brandon Meriweather were praised by the NFL for clean play in Sunday's victories.
Ray Anderson, the league's executive vice president of football operations, said that Meriweather and Harrison "heeded our emphasis" on eliminating fouls and deserve to be lauded. So do others, Anderson said, after no flags were thrown for illegal hits to defenseless players in the 13 games.
Harrison was fined $75,000 and Meriweather $50,000 for hits to defenseless opponents last week, when the NFL announced it would begin suspending players for such tackles.
Swimming
USA Swimming says it will open its own investigation into the death of open-water swimmer Fran Crippen at a World Cup event in the United Arab Emirates.
The governing body of swimming in the United States said it will examine exactly what happened to Crippen, why it happened and what can be learned to prevent such a death from happening again.
USA Swimming said its investigation will be conducted independently of FINA, the sport's world governing body that is looking into Crippen's death.
Crippen, a 26-year-old from suburban Philadelphia, died Saturday during a 10-kilometer race. He failed to finish and was found in the water two hours later, about 400 meters from the finish, organizers said.
Baseball
The DUI manslaughter trial of former major league baseball player Jim Leyritz is starting with jury selection.
A six-person jury will be chosen from a pool of 75 people in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Jury selection is expected to take several days and the trial three to four weeks.
Leyritz is accused of driving drunk in December 2007, running a red light and crashing into a vehicle driven by 30-year-old Fredia Ann Veitch.
If convicted, Leyritz faces a faces a maximum 15-year prison sentence.
Soccer
FIFA widened its probe into alleged World Cup bidding corruption after a former leading administrator reportedly claimed two candidates have colluded to trade votes.
FIFA said it has "immediately requested to receive all ... potential evidence," from Britain's Sunday Times newspaper regarding its reporting of comments from Michel Zen-Ruffinen, who was general secretary of football's world governing body for four years until 2002.
Zen-Ruffinen was secretly filmed saying Spain-Portugal and Qatar have struck a deal giving each seven votes from the 24-man FIFA executive committee which is choosing World Cup hosts in December.
- The Associated Press