U.S. Soccer did Tuesday what many of its most influential players suggested 2 1/2 years ago, hiring Sweden's Pia Sundhage as the first foreign coach of its vaunted women's national team. "It's a unique moment for many of us, in many respects," Sundhage said by phone from Sweden. Sundhage, 47, is Sweden's all-time leading scorer with 71 goals in 146 games and has since coached on three continents, including a stint in the WUSA and ... [full story]

  If you want to decrease your number of putts per round, take a few practice sessions using just one golf ball and putt everything out. You want to recreate the real-life situation that you find yourself in out on the golf course, which includes …  [full story]

Q: I am a beginning player - what are some things I can do to improve my game?   HOYT CORKINS - Hoyt Corkins has been playing poker at a high level for almost 30 years. He owns two WSOP bracelets, has made four World Poker Tour final tables and earned a second-place finish in the WSOP Tournament of Champions. CNS Photo.  - Hot Mary, Waupun, Wis. A: I would say play tight to start off with ... [full story]

SAN FRANCISCO - Major League Baseball's all-time home run leader Barry Bonds has been indicted in San Francisco on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice. Documents were filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco in connection with Bonds' Dec. 4, 2003, grand jury appearance, during which he testified he did not knowingly take performance enhancing drugs supplied by Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO).Bonds' former mistress, Kimberly ... [full story]

SAN DIEGO - Padres CEO Sandy Alderson isn't predicting his club will spend large sums on free agents - but he said the midrevenue franchise has significant dollars to spend. The Padres, unlike many clubs, don't have any cementlike contracts on the books, and they've locked up the rotation's Nos. 1, 2 and 3 pitchers for under $19 million total. "We've got plenty of room," Alderson said Tuesday, when the Padres were free to make ... [full story]

When Dwight F. Davis in 1899 commissioned the creation of the Davis Cup, his motivations hardly could have been more benign. Davis, then a Harvard student and a leading American tennis player, wanted to do something for his sport that would fight off that upstart, golf. Nothing sinister there. But an event meant to foster good feeling among nations has become the stuff of international intrigue with a contention by Alex Waske, a former San ... [full story]

Shorter days, cool temperatures and buck fever go a long ways toward calming many an avid angler's desire to put the boat in the water and go fishing for trophy bass. But for everyone who already has the tarp over the boat and the rods and reels in the closet, know this: autumn - especially mid-November to mid-December - offers some terrific opportunities to catch bass. In fact, it may be one of the best ... [full story]

Where should a college basketball follower's interest be focused for the start of the 2007-08 season? Go West young fan. Go West old or middle-aged fan. Go West casual fan or hoopsaholic. Tobacco Road and the talented teams and individuals on and around it will be given their props sooner or later, so help us Billy Packer. The same for those whose identifying thoroughfares might be the Dixie Highway, the D.C. Beltway, Pennsylvania or New ... [full story]

LOS ANGELES - Good thing they did put off this big-deal announcement until Monday, because if the Dodgers had staged it a day earlier on Sunday, it would have taken on all sorts of sacrilegious implications. Or religious, depending on the amount of faith you put in the power of baseball. Truly, while the occasion was the introduction of the latest sucker, er, savior to try to manage this messed-up ballclub, it did have a ... [full story]

Blaming a tainted nutritional supplement might be a plausible explanation for a positive urine test for a banned stimulant. Five years ago. But anti-doping experts say the already slim chances of a supplement triggering a positive for a stimulant, as San Diego Padres outfielder Mike Cameron suggested recently, have dwindled significantly since the Federal Drug Administration barred the popular stimulant ephedrine from supplements in 2005. "It's not a very high likelihood it's from a contaminated ... [full story]

LAKESIDE, Calif. - In the last glow of sunlight Sunday evening at the Barona Creek Golf Club, most of the 25 players who had earned their PGA Tour cards after the Nationwide Tour Championship were scrunched shoulder to shoulder, getting their group photo taken.   TOUR BOUND - Kyle Thompson (from left), Jimmy Walker, Richard Johnson and Brenden Pappas will be playing on the PGA Tour this January after graduating from the Nationwide Tour. CNS photos ... [full story]

In the 20 months that he has been president of U.S. Soccer, Sunil Gulati has fired and hired the men's national coach, fired the women's national coach and launched a search for a replacement, and attempted to overhaul an unwieldy youth club system. Nothing, though, might be more important for the future of the American game than what he did recently, when he hired an under-17 men's national coach. Gulati hired Wilmer Cabrera, who played ... [full story]

  Your finish position tells you a lot about your full swing. You should be able to hold your finish position for as long as you want. If you find that you are not very balanced in your finish position, or can’t hold it for very long, that can be telling you something about the rest of your swing. Golf …  [full story]