Wiggins Agrees to Report to San...

Alan Wiggins, coming off his second rehabilitation stop for drug treatment, agreed Tuesday to report to the San Diego Padres’ Las Vegas affiliate in the Pacific Coast League.

San Diego President Ballard Smith said efforts to trade the second baseman will continue.

Before Wiggins was voluntarily admitted to a drug rehabilitation clinic in Center City, Minn., for 28 days last month, the Padres had said that he would never play for them again. He went through rehabilitation treatment in 1982.

The players’ association has insisted that this is Wiggins’ first offense since the new drug program went into effect.

Several clubs are known to have made inquiries involving Wiggins, including the Baltimore Orioles. Smith declined to identify any of the teams.

Major league baseball players will set a strike date between July 1-10 unless there is some meaningful progress in negotiations, union chief Donald Fehr said after a 2 1/2-hour talk between the two sides.

Fehr added that no decision has been made whether to boycott the July 16 All-Star game at Minneapolis but said that it could happen.

“It’s getting late in the game, and we’re not getting meaningful reponses, including not getting meaningful responses on some things that are surprising,” said Fehr, acting executive director of the players’ association.

Lee MacPhail, president of the owners’ Player Relations Committee, described the session as a “good business meeting. It’s going to require many more to get something done.”

A date wasn’t set for the next talks.

Tulane University President Eamon Kelly, who eliminated his school’s basketball program in response to a point-shaving scandal, said he does not expect the rebirth of the sport at the school.

“I don’t foresee basketball coming back to Tulane,” he said. “I would not recommend the reinstitution of basketball unless there was a dramatic change in the national environment. And while I’d love to see that take place, I really can’t foresee it, given the current set of facts and circumstances.”

University presidents and athletic directors will meet in New Orleans today to discuss such issues as drug use, gambling and the integrity of college athletics in general.

The representatives will consider tougher penalties for coaches who ignore NCAA rules and establishment of “major” and “secondary” categories of violations with especially harsh punishment for repeat offenders.

Several leading jockeys, seeking to scuttle state-imposed drug testing, testified in a Camden, N.J., federal court that they police their own ranks out of a concern for the safety of horse racing.

Jockey Vincent Bracciale said there was always a “small group of jockeys” who closely watched their colleagues for signs of drug or alcohol use. He added that there is intense peer pressure on jockeys to remain straight and that he was never in a race where he suspected a fellow rider was under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Charles White, the 1979 Heisman Trophy winner at USC, apparently passed a brief tryout for his former USC coach, John Robinson, and will sign with the Rams as a free agent. White, a running back, was cut recently by the Cleveland Browns.

Robinson said: “He’s in great shape. I see him as a complement to Eric (Dickerson) and Barry Redden. I don’t see him as a rival for either one. I see him and Barry as the kickoff returners.”

As a sixth-year player, White must be paid a minimum of $100,000 this season.

The New York Rangers will name Ted Sator as coach of the National Hockey League club today, according to sources close to the team.

The Rangers have called a news conference for today at the Madison Square Garden’s Hall of Fame Club to make the announcement.

The 34-year-old Sator, an assistant coach with Philadelphia the last two seasons, helped rookie Coach Mike Keenan lead the Flyers to the best regular-season record in the NHL this past season.