Sports briefs 6/22/04

Baseball

A day after hitting his 500th home run, Ken Griffey Jr. solidified his spot Monday in fan voting for NL starting slots in the All-Star game. Griffey, Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa are the top three among outfielders. The All-Star teams will be announced July 4. Bonds (1,502,397) leads all NL players in the voting. Also leading in NL voting are catcher Mike Piazza (1,188,858) of the New York Mets, first baseman Albert Pujols (1,149,068) and third baseman Scott Rolen (1,310,385) of St. Louis, and second baseman Jeff Kent (1,340,101) and shortstop Adam Everett (725,629) of the Astros.

College

Stanford swimmer Tara Kirk, who set the world record in the 100-meter breaststroke, swept four straight NCAA titles and became a favorite to make the Olympic team, won the Broderick Cup as the nation's collegiate woman athlete of the year. Kirk was among five finalists, a group that included North Carolina soccer standout Catherine Reddick, Florida State softball player Jessica van der Linden, Southern California volleyball star April Ross and Diana Taurasi, who led Connecticut to three straight national championships.

Cycling

A court rejected Lance Armstrong's attempt to force a publisher to insert the star cyclist's denial of doping allegations into copies of a new book about him. The five-time Tour de France winner wanted publisher La Martiniere to insert a notice into "L.A. Confidential, the Secrets of Lance Armstrong," with his rebuttal against doping claims in the book. But judge Catherine Bezio called Armstrong's request an "abuse" of the legal system and ordered him to pay the authors and publisher a symbolic $1.20 fine.

Football

Prosecutors dropped a final charge against New England Patriots cornerback Ty Law, who was arrested in April after he allegedly led police on a brief foot chase. Joel Hirschhorn, Law's attorney, said he previously discussed the case with prosecutors, who dropped the charge of disobeying a lawful command by a police officer and the traffic ticket before Monday's hearing. Prosecutor Jonny Mosely dismissed the remaining charge of resisting an officer without violence at the hearing. Mosely had no comment on why the charges were dropped.

Motorsports

A punctured tire, probably from debris left on the track after an earlier crash, caused the spin that sent Ralf Schumacher into the wall during the U.S. Grand Prix. Schumacher spent the night at a hospital as a precaution and was released Monday morning. Schumacher, younger brother of race winner and six-time Formula One champion Michael Schumacher, spun twice on the 10th lap coming out of the last of the 13 turns Sunday. He went backward into the wall and had to be taken from the car by the safety crew.

-- From wire reports