Yankee Stadium gets All-Star game

Yankee Stadium is going out with an All-Star salute.

Commissioner Bud Selig officially announced the ballpark will play host to the 79th major league All-Star game July 15, 2008, the final season before the New York Yankees move into a new stadium across the street.

It will be the fourth All-Star game at Yankee Stadium, which opened in 1923. The last All-Star game there was in 1977.

Congress is monitoring George Mitchell’s investigation of steroids in baseball and could intervene if he doesn’t get more cooperation, Bobby Rush (D.-Ill.) and Cliff Stearns (R.-Fla.) told the former senate majority leader in a letter.

Right-hander Mark Prior and the Chicago Cubs agreed to a one-year, $3.5-million deal. Prior, 26, has won only 18 games the last three seasons while battling injuries.

TENNIS

Roddick, Blake head

U.S. Davis Cup team

Andy Roddick, James Blake and Bob and Mike Bryan will represent the U.S. against the Czech Republic on Feb. 9-11 in the first round of the Davis Cup on an indoor clay court at Ostrava.

Kim Clijsters pulled out of next week’s Open Gaz de France in Paris because of a bad hip.

Defending champions Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova are scheduled to play in the Pacific Life Open at Indian Wells in March.

Five of the top 10 women -- Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters, Amelie Mauresmo, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Jelena Jankovic -- are not scheduled to play.

First-round, main-draw action for the women starts March 7 and March 9 for the men.

-- Lisa Dillman

Martina Hingis defeated Nicole Pratt, 6-1, 7-5, to reach the quarterfinals of the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo.... Robert Kendrick beat Scoville Jenkins, 6-4, 6-4, to finish the round-robin stage of the Delray Beach International in Florida with a 1-1 record.... Albert Montanez beat Gustavo Kuerten, 6-1, 6-4, ousting the three-time French Open winner from the round-robin Movistar Open in Vina del Mar, Chile.... Marcos Baghdatis beat Frank Dancevic, 7-6 (1), 6-3, to advance to the quarterfinals of the Zagreb Open in Croatia.

MOTOR RACING

NASCAR changes

provisional rules

NASCAR changed its Nextel Cup past champions provisional to limit it to only six uses per season. There had previously been no limit to how many times a past Cup champion could use the provisional to ensure a spot in the field each week.

A Roush Racing car hauler carrying two Nextel Cup race cars crashed into a motor home, setting off a chain-reaction accident involving other vehicles in Sierra Blanca, Texas.

Four persons were hospitalized. Their identities and which vehicle they were in were not immediately available.

JURISPRUDENCE

Chargers’ Foley sues

for damages in shooting

San Diego Chargers linebacker Steve Foley sued the city of Coronado and the off-duty police officer who shot him three times outside his home Sept 3, his attorney said. The civil suit seeks unspecified damages.

Foley, suspected of drunk driving, sat out the season and wasn’t paid his $775,000 salary.

Former world champion boxer Ricardo Mayorga was arrested on fraud charges in Managua, Nicaragua, after a car dealer accused him of failing to pay $56,000 for four cars.

MISCELLANY

U.S. women to play

Mexico in April

The U.S. women’s soccer team will open its U.S. schedule heading to the World Cup with an April 14 game against Mexico in Foxborough, Mass.

Bode Miller secured a slalom spot on the U.S. team for this month’s world championships in Sweden, Coach Phil NcNichol said. Miller needs a slalom title to become the only man to win world championship gold medals in all five disciplines.

Wyoming is conducting an inquiry into the brawl that broke out during Tuesday’s basketball game against New Mexico in Albuquerque. Wyoming guards Brandon Jones and Brandon Ewing and New Mexico guard Jamaal Smith were ejected.

UCLA added a home game against Fresno State to its 2008 football schedule. The Bruins will open against the Bulldogs on Aug. 30, followed by another home game against Tennessee on Sept. 6.

UCLA’s previously scheduled game at San Diego State on Sept. 20 has been canceled, giving the Bruins a week off.

-- Lonnie White

Furniture dealer Hilton Koch bought the Houston Comets from Leslie Alexander, making the four-time WNBA champions the league’s fifth independently owned franchise.

As an audiotape spread on the Internet, Alabama football Coach Nick Saban acknowledged using a phrase considered derogatory to Cajuns during a Jan. 3 interview but said he doesn’t condone such language and merely was repeating something a friend told him.

Sun Ming Ming, a 7-foot-9, 370-pound center with NBA aspirations, signed with the Maryland Nighthawks of the American Basketball Assn. He is 23.

PASSINGS

Inman, 80; helped build

1977 NBA champions

Stu Inman, 80, the executive who helped build the Portland Trail Blazers’ only title team, died of an apparent heart attack in Portland, Ore. Section B

Yelena Romanova, the 3,000-meter gold medalist for Russia at the 1992 Summer Olympics, died in Volgograd, Russia. No cause was given. She was 43.