Yankees Are in Need of Thief Counseling

Rick Telander of the Chicago Sun-Times says he has no sympathy for Ruben Rivera, who was dumped by the New York Yankees after stealing All-Star teammate Derek Jeter’s glove and selling it to a collector:

“Maybe there were teammates who liked Rivera, but even his friends had to breathe a sigh of relief.

“A lot of things you can excuse in sports. Stealing from a teammate isn’t one of them.

“Apologists can reach for excuses, talk about compassion, talk about a lack of awareness, a breakdown in morals, the alienating effects of the star system, kleptomania, whatever. It’s simple--you don’t steal in the locker room.

“And when you do--adios.”

More Telander: “Former Yankee Jim Bouton writes in this week’s Sports Illustrated that it’s a shame Rivera’s transgression made it into the public arena, that clubhouses used to be bottled up, sequestered, self-governing.

“This from the guy who wrote ‘Ball Four’?

“And Bouton thinks if the shoes, or gloves, were reversed, and Jeter were the culprit, this probably would have been kept hush-hush. I hope not.

“Scum is scum. Even if it can hit the slider.”

Trivia time: Who are the three coaches who have taken four different teams to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament?

Go, Salukis! Ron Borges, writing for NBCSports.com, says he’ll be rooting for Southern Illinois to upset second-seeded Connecticut tonight to get into Sunday’s NCAA East Regional final:

“After all, they have a coach in Bruce Weber who refused to back down when he bumped up against the ego of Georgia Coach Jim Harrick, who once won a national title at UCLA and never wants you to forget it.”

Tarnished gold: Casey FitzRandolph, winner of the 500-meter long-track speedskating event in the Salt Lake Games last month, wants to try for another Olympic gold medal in 2006. But he’s looking for a long-term sponsor to cover expenses after being dropped by the Dutch company TVM.

“It was my hope that if I won a gold medal, [sponsors] would come to me,” he said. “I don’t want to scrape by at 30 years old. I think I deserve that over the next four years, based on what I’ve accomplished. I’m not looking to get rich.”

Trivia answer: Lefty Driesell (Davidson, Maryland, James Madison, Georgia State), Jim Harrick (Pepperdine, UCLA, Rhode Island, Georgia) and Eddie Sutton (Creighton, Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma State).

And finally: Bill Johnson, the former Olympic downhill champion, plans to ski today at the spot in Whitefish, Mont., where a crash exactly one year ago left him near death and with brain injuries that might never heal.

“I don’t even know where I’m going,” said Johnson, 41, whose speech is still slurred. “I have forgotten everything about that accident. It’s in Montana, and I really don’t remember skiing in Montana.

“But it’s exciting to understand those people that helped me out, and what they went through to get me able again.”

Johnson will meet the neurosurgeon who removed a postcard-sized piece of his skull to treat a blood clot in his brain, as well as the doctor who spent 90 minutes stitching the pieces of Johnson’s tongue back together.