Injuries Hamper U.S. Gymnasts

Halfway through the individual event finals at the World Gymnastics Championships at Sabae, Japan, the hopes of the American women were dashed by injuries.

Shannon Miller finished seventh in the uneven parallel bars Monday but withdrew from the vault because of a foot injury. Kerri Strug also withdrew from the vault after hurting her right ankle during warmups.

The men fared slightly better. Mihai Bagiu of Albuquerque tied for fifth on the pommel horse, was the highest American finisher.

Vitaly Scherbo of Belarus, the 1993 world champion and winner of six gold medals at the 1992 Olympics, won the floor exercise, over China’s Li Xiaoshuang, the men’s all-around champion.

Baseball

The condition of Former major-league outfielder Vada Pinson has deteriorated since he suffered a stroke last week and was downgraded from serious to guarded.

Pinson, 57, is still in a coma at Summit Medical Center in Oakland.

Pinson, most recently the first-base coach for the Florida Marlins in 1993 and 1994, compiled a .286 batting average with 256 home runs and 1,170 runs batted in in an 18-year major-league career that ended in 1975. He was not involved in organized baseball this year.

Pinson was best known for the 11 seasons (1958-68) he spent with the Cincinnati Reds, where he led the National League in hits in 1961 (208) and 1963 (204), runs in 1959 (131), doubles in 1959 (47) and 1960 (37) and triples in 1963 (14) and 1967 (13).

Pinson also played for St. Louis, Cleveland, California and Kansas City before retiring. He served as a hitting instructor with Seattle, the Chicago White Sox and Detroit.

Miscellany

Hall of Fame rider Angel Cordero Jr., who came out of retirment to ride at El Comandante in Puerto Rico two weeks ago, will make his mainland comeback at Belmont Park Saturday.

He is scheduled to ride Rogues Walk, whom he trains, in the Iroquois Stakes.

Cordero said he talked to both owners of the filly, and they told him he would ride the horse if the regular rider, John Velazquez, didn’t object.

Cordero is slated to ride at least three horses on Saturday and perhaps as many as five. As a result, his wife, Marjorie, will assume his role as trainer of the the Cordero racing stable effective Wednesday.

World soccer’s governing body established a commission to study proposals to overhaul the organization of the sport, rotate the World Cup finals geographically, and boost income.

The working group will report to the presidents of the six continental confederations who will then make their recommendations to FIFA’s executive committee in December.

The move delayed, and even defused, a power struggle between FIFA president Joao Havelange and Lennart Johanssen, head of the powerful European organization, UEFA.

Havelange said Johanssen told a meeting of confederation chiefs that Europe wanted “an evolution not a revolution.”

The working group will study two so-called Vision proposals issued by Johanssen.

Vision I would rotate the World Cup finals automatically among continents to avoid the political infighting that currently dominates site selection; cut FIFA’s central role, and reform its decision-making executive committee.

Vision II would boost World Cup income to at least $800 million by overhauling the sale of television and marketing rights. By comparison, TV rights for the 1994 World Cup finals in the United States brought in just under $96 million.

A small plane carrying East Carolina football coach Steve Logan and athletic director Mike Hamrick made an emergency landing in a soybean field in Princeton, N.C. None of the five people aboard was injured.

The group was on its way back to the Greenville campus following a news conference in Charlotte to announce a series with North Carolina State when the engine failed.

The fifth person on board the single-engine aircraft was the pilot, identified as Harry Sloan.

Fifteen-year-old Martina Hingis of Switzerland was eliminated from the Porsche Grand Prix at Filderstadt, Germany by sixth-seeded Natasha Zvereva, 6-4, 6-4.

Andre Agassi withdrew from a tournament in Lyon, France, citing continuing problems with a pulled chest muscle.

After a lengthy jury-selection process during which the defendant signed autographs in the hallways, opening statements are likely to begin sometime today at the mail fraud trial of boxing promoter Don King.

Jury selection was expected to be finished in the morning.

King signed dozens of autographs at the federal courthouse in New York while jury selection was underway.

Raymond Floyd has entered the Ralphs Senior Golf Classic, which will be held at the Wilshire Country Club, Oct. 16-22.

Edmonton Oiler right wing Jason Arnott, who suffered a severe concussion when he was struck in the head by a puck last Sunday, has been placed on injured reserve.