‘Pacman’ Jones appeals season-long NFL ban

Tennessee Titans cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones appealed a season-long suspension and a hearing with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell should be held within two weeks, a league spokesman said Monday.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello confirmed Monday that Jones’ letter arrived at league offices over the weekend.

“He will have a full opportunity to present his case,” Aiello said.

Jones first met with Goodell on April 3 to discuss off-field conduct that has included 10 incidents in which he has been interviewed by police with five arrests since the Titans drafted him in April 2005. A week later, Goodell suspended Jones.

Jones’ attorney did not return telephone messages.

Former doctor Ana Maria Santi will plead guilty June 1 in Providence, R.I., to 29 counts of illegally prescribing anabolic steroids and human growth hormone to patients she never met or examined, her attorney, Edward Roy, said. The maximum prison sentence is 155 years.

Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tank Johnson, 25, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor weapons charge in Waukegan, Ill., as part of an arrangement that will let him serve 45 days in jail concurrently with a four-month sentence he’s already serving for a parole violation.

A misdemeanor battery charge against USC linebacker Rey Maualuga stemming from a 2005 incident after a Halloween party is scheduled to be dismissed today, according to a spokesperson for the Los Angeles City attorney’s office.

Maualuga completed an arraignment diversion program.

-- Gary Klein

TENNIS

Defending champion Rochus upset by Melzer

Defending champion Olivier Rochus lost, 6-2, 6-4, to eighth-seeded Jurgen Melzer in the first round of the BMW Open in Munich, Germany.

Third-seeded Mikhail Youzhny and No. 4 Marcos Baghdatis also advanced, with Youzhny defeating Stefan Koubek, 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, and Baghdatis beating Diego Hartfield, 7-6 (5), 6-3.

Juan Monaco upset eighth-seeded Gael Monfils, 7-5, 1-6, 6-2, in the first round of the Estoril Open in Oeiras, Portugal.

Jill Craybas was defeated, 7-6 (6), 7-5, by sixth-seeded Anna Chakvetadze in 48-degree temperatures in the first round of the J&S; Cup at Warsaw.

VOLLEYBALL

Pepperdine receives lone at-large bid

Pepperdine received the only at-large bid to the NCAA Final Four in men’s volleyball that begins Thursday at Columbus, Ohio.

Not only that, but the Waves are the No. 1-seeded team.

Pepperdine (26-2) was top-ranked in the nation but was upset, three games to two, by UC Irvine in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championship last Saturday. By ending Pepperdine’s 23-match winning streak, Irvine earned the conference’s automatic berth in the national semifinals.

UC Irvine (27-6) will play Penn State (22-7) Thursday about 4 p.m. PDT after Pepperdine (26-2) meets Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne (22-7) at 2 p.m.

The winners play Saturday at 4 p.m. for the championship.

The Irvine-Penn State match will be shown live on ESPNU and delayed on ESPN2. The Pepperdine-IPFW and title matches will be live on ESPN2.

MISCELLANY

Cyclist Basso quits spot on Discovery team

Italian cyclist Ivan Basso quit the Discovery Channel team after Italian authorities reopened an investigation into his role in a Spanish doping scandal.

Less than two weeks before he was scheduled to defend his Giro d’Italia title, Basso, 29, asked to be released from his contract during a meeting Sunday with Discovery officials, the team said in a statement.

The United States and England, Japan, Spain, Mexico and Australia are capable of hosting soccer’s 2010 World Cup if South Africa isn’t ready, FIFA President Sepp Blatter said.

The Philadelphia Eagles released seven-year veteran linebacker Dhani Jones, 29, who had joined them in 2005.

Horse racing network TVG has been moved by DirecTV from a sports tier to a more broad-based tier. It is now available in nearly 9 million of the satellite provider’s 16 million homes. For now the channel number remains 602. The move increases TVG’s total distribution to nearly 30 million satellite and cable homes.

-- Larry Stewart

Swiss sailor Bernard Stamm won the Velux 5 Oceans solo around-the-world yacht race for the second straight time in Bilbao, Spain. He arrived in 103 days, 22 hours, 10 minutes from Norfolk, Va., aboard Cheminees Poujoulat, the Open 60 he built.

Japan’s Kojiro Shiraishi, sailing Spirit of Yukoh, arrived 43 minutes after Stamm.

PASSINGS

Forester, former Packers linebacker, 74

Former Green Bay Packers linebacker Bill Forester died Friday after a long illness. He was 74. No cause of death was given.

Former NFL linebacker Kevin Mitchell died in his sleep at 36 in Ashburn, Va.