Kim Puts Finger on a New Contract

The Boston Red Sox have agreed to a two-year contract with reliever Byung-Hyun Kim, who made an obscene gesture last season during the American League division series after being booed by Red Sox fans upset that he had blown a save in Game 1.

Kim later apologized.

“That incident is something B.K. spent a lot of time thinking about,” Boston General Manager Theo Epstein told Associated Press. “He feels like he’s got a lot to prove to Red Sox fans, and he wants to help this club accomplish something in 2004 that we didn’t accomplish in 2003.”

If Kim comes through, perhaps he can raise a different finger in the air at Fenway Park.

*

Trivia time: What was the longest game, in innings, played at Anaheim Stadium?

*

Ouch: Count the Chicago Sun-Times’ Jay Mariotti among those who consider folly the floundering Chicago Bulls’ attempt to build around young centers Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler.

“All you need to know about Curry is that his two Rottweilers, Bear and Nasty, showed more fangs in attacking a neighbor’s dog than their master has shown in three years in the paint,” Mariotti wrote.

“And all you need to know about Chandler is that he’s 21 and already has a chronic back problem, which begs the question of whether he’ll be soaking in a tub at an old folks’ home by 30.”

*

A sure bet: Bill Scheft of Sports Illustrated thinks Pete Rose may need the money from his new autobiography, “My Prison Without Bars.”

“Every chapter in the book is Chapter 11,” Scheft wrote.

*

More Rose: Scheft also noted Rose’s admission that he still gambles. “It’s sad,” Scheft wrote. “He’s 2-6 betting against the Cougars on ‘Playmakers.’ And three of those were repeat episodes.”

*

Clipped wings: Steve Rosenbloom of the Chicago Tribune is among the latest to compare the Philadelphia Eagles, losers of three consecutive NFC championship games, to the Jim Kelly-led Buffalo Bills, losers of four consecutive Super Bowls. Wrote Rosenbloom: “The Eagles just became the Bills with training wheels.”

*

Super bust? Super Bowl XXXVIII will pit the New England Patriots against the Carolina Panthers in a matchup of dominating defenses that could feature all the drama of grass growing, suggested Jeff Miller of the Miami Herald.

“The danger,” Miller wrote, “is a Super Bowl that ends with not a single moment more memorable than some Pepsi commercial or the halftime performance of Aerosmith, a band that has sold out so much it would peddle its larynxes for an extra $20.”

*

Trivia answer: The Angels and Seattle Mariners played a 20-inning marathon April 13, 1982. The Angels won, 4-3.

*

And finally: Bernie Lincicome of the Rocky Mountain News called the Carolina Panthers “a team that has leapt straight from the side of a milk carton into the spotlight. Yes, that Carolina, or the other Carolina. One of them. We expect whichever it is to bring a biography to media day.”