Turner Finds a Soft Spot for Rocker

Owner Ted Turner of the Atlanta Braves, no stranger to controversy, said pitcher John Rocker deserves forgiveness for his disparaging remarks about immigrants, minorities and homosexuals.

“I think he was off his rocker when he said those things,” Turner said Wednesday on CNN’s “Moneyline,” his first public comments on the Rocker flap.

Turner pointed out that the ace left-handed reliever has apologized.

“I don’t think we ought to hold it against him forever,” Turner said. “He didn’t commit a crime.”

Turner also said he believes Rocker’s talent heightened reaction to what he said.

“If he couldn’t get people out, I don’t think it would have been as much of a problem,” Turner said.

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Deion Sanders has signed a non-guaranteed minor league contract with the Cincinnati Reds and has been invited to spring training.

“Deion hasn’t played baseball in two years,” Cincinnati General Manager Jim Bowden said Thursday. “We don’t know where his baseball skills are, but in spring training we want to give him the opportunity to compete for a roster spot.” The Reds also signed right-handed pitchers Mark Portugal and Johnny Ruffin to minor league contracts.

Veteran reliever Terry Mathews, 35, who spent most of last season with the Kansas City Royals, signed a minor league contract with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays that includes an invitation to spring training.

Richie Phillips and the Major League Umpires Assn. will find out today if the National Labor Relations Board grants their request to have umpires vote again on which union they want.

NLRB hearing officer David Leach III intended to issue his decision on the union’s appeal of the election it lost, 57-35, to an insurgent union in November,

Phillips, the union’s head, claims owners illegally sided with the insurgents, called the Major League Umpires Independent Organizing Committee, and that the new union illegally tried to win votes by saying it could get a better deal with owners than the MLUA.

Jurisprudence

In another blow to the embattled International Boxing Federation, its No. 1 heavyweight contender, David Tua, claims the sanctioning group is improperly delaying his title fight against Lennox Lewis.

Tua says the IBF violated its own regulations by ruling that Lewis was not obligated to fight him until Nov. 13, according to a federal lawsuit filed in Newark, N.J.

That date is a year after Britain’s Lewis unified the heavyweight titles by defeating Evander Holyfield in a rematch of their controversial draw.

Tua, of New Zealand, maintains that because his bout against the IBF champion was delayed by the rematch, it must occur sooner than Nov. 13.

The NFL and NBA, along with three TV networks and 10 movie companies, filed complaints in Pittsburgh federal court accusing a Toronto firm of intercepting programs and rebroadcasting them over an Internet site without authorization.

In their lawsuit against iCraveTV, the NFL and NBA are demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for any copyrighted games intercepted from stations in Buffalo, N.Y., or Toronto since the Web site was launched Nov. 30.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia is being asked to reconsider a ruling that the NCAA cannot be sued for the discriminatory effects of its freshman eligibility rule.

The suit seeks an injunction prohibiting the NCAA from using a cutoff score requirement and allowing all affected student-athletes to regain their lost year of athletic eligibility.

Defensive end Mac Tuiaea of the University of Washington, benched for the first half of the Holiday Bowl, was arraigned in Seattle Municipal Court on a charge of driving under the influence as the result of his arrest Dec. 18. Tuiaea, a fifth-year senior who has completed his eligibility, was not allowed to play during the first half of the Dec. 29 game against Kansas State because of what the team called “team rules violations.”

Miscellany

Six top U.S. prospects, among them UCLA defender Carlos Bocanegra, signed developmental contracts with Major League Soccer.

Bocanegra, of Alta Loma, joins Indiana defender Nick Garcia, forward Bobby Convey, a star on the under-17 World Cup team, North Carolina State forward Shaker Asad, North Carolina Greensboro midfielder Rusty Pierce and forward Sergio Salas of Falls Church, Va., in MLS’ Project-40 program.

Shawn Slocum, who coached USC’s linebackers and special teams the last two seasons, resigned to return to Texas A&M; as an assistant to his father, R.C. Slocum.

Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, already the second-biggest sports facility in the country, is adding 16,000 seats and more access roads, bringing its capacity in excess of 220,000. Some of the roads and all of the bleachers will be in place for the NASCAR Winston Cup race on April 2.

Balmy temperatures have heightened concerns about women’s World Cup downhill races scheduled for next month at Snowbasin in Ogden, Utah. Snowbasin manager Gray Reynolds declined to say when officials would decide whether the World Cup downhill, scheduled for Feb. 7-12, could be held at the site of the event for the 2002 Winter Olympics. . . . France’s Raphael Poiree defeated overall biathlon World Cup leader Ole Einar Bjoerndalen of Norway by two seconds in a men’s 10-kilometer race at Anterselva, Italy. . . . Australia’s Zeke Steggall finished ahead of Austria’s Alexander Koller and Italy’s Carmen Ranigler defeated Austria’s Manuela Riegler at Gstaad, Switzerland, to earn their first victories of the season in snowboard cross events. . . . Reigning World Cup dual moguls ski champion Michelle Roark of Golden, Colo., is out for the season because of ligament and meniscus damage to her right knee.