Barkley Makes It Official: He’ll Play in 1997-98

Charles Barkley, who had said as early as June 11 that he was 99% certain he would play another NBA season, added the other 1% Wednesday.

Barkley said he is pleased with the inroads Houston has made regarding possible free-agent acquisitions, something he called a requirement to get him to play another season for the Rockets.

“I got completely away from basketball for a while,” Barkley said. “I talked with Michael [Jordan] about it, and he thinks I ought to be back. And the past week I spent with my family in Alabama and they agreed.”

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The Louisville basketball program, already on probation for allowing athletes improper access to vehicles, has violated NCAA regulations again, university President John Shumaker said. The newest violation stems from assistant Scooter McCray’s authorizing charges on his credit card to keep player Nate Johnson’s father from being evicted from a Louisville hotel in December.

Jurisprudence

Birmingham, Mich., police said they had ordered more toxicology tests on Richard Gnida, the driver of a limousine that crashed, injuring members of the Detroit Red Wings on June 13, and that means it will be early July before prosecutors decide whether to bring charges.

Red Wing defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov and team masseur Sergei Mnatsakanov suffered severe head injuries when the limo veered off a busy road and crashed into a tree. Both are still in comas and are in critical condition.

Based on witness reports and comments from Gnida, police believe he fell asleep. Hospital officials say alcohol was not a factor.

Denny McLain, baseball’s last 30-game winner, is in a federal prison for the second time in 10 years.

McLain, 53, was convicted in May on charges of conspiracy, mail fraud, theft from a pension plan and money laundering and was sentenced to 97 months. He was admitted to the McKean County Federal Correctional Institution in Bradford, Pa., an unfenced prison housing nonviolent offenders.

Nearly a year after Johnnie Hernandez was arrested for hiring a hit man to kill Michael Irvin, the Dallas Cowboys’ receiver spent more than hour meeting with the former policeman in prison.

What was said remained between them. With no glass to separate them, they shook hands at the beginning and end of their visit, officials said.

Hernandez is serving six years in a prison near Lubbock, Texas, but reportedly is now claiming he was entrapped when he tried to hire an undercover drug agent to kill Irvin, whom he believed had threatened Hernandez’s girlfriend.

Track and Field

Michael Johnson, once seemingly unbeatable, lost his second race in a row, this time at 400 meters, a distance at which he had not been outrun in eight years.

Antonio Pettigrew passed Johnson in the final 40 meters and won the event in 44.86 seconds at the Gaz de France meet. Johnson finished fifth in 45.76.

Johnson would not talk with reporters, but his coach, Clyde Hart, said the runner was just out of shape.

In a highly anticipated meeting between the two top 1,500-meter runners, indoor world record holder Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco took off in the last 600 meters and beat outdoor world record holder Noureddine Morceli of Algeria by nearly 15 meters, in 3:31.87.

Arizona State’s track and field program was put on two years’ probation by the NCAA for violations involving extra benefits, recruiting and ethical conduct.

The violations caused the forced resignation of coach Leonard Braxton in December 1995.

Miscellany

Ila Borders from Whittier, the first woman to pitch in a regular-season minor league baseball game, was traded by the St. Paul Saints to the Duluth-Superior Dukes for infielder Keith English. In seven Northern League games, Borders had a 7.50 earned-run average in six innings, giving up 11 hits, walking four and striking out five. In her last six games, Borders gave up only two earned runs.

The largest expansion plan since the NHL doubled in size three decades ago was approved by the Board of Governors, bringing big league hockey to Atlanta, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Nashville, Tenn., and Columbus, Ohio.

The new franchises will cost $80 million each. The $320 million windfall will be shared by the existing teams.

Heart surgery has been delayed for former U.S. Olympic hockey coach Dave Peterson, 66, to give him time to recover from a Sunday heart attack and allow doctors to perform more tests.

Marcelo Zalayeta scored twice in the first half and Nicolas Olivera scored in the second for Uruguay, which eliminated the United States from soccer’s Under-20 World Cup in Sha Alam, Malaysia.