For The Record

Retired
From organized sausage racing, Mandy Block, who was knocked to the ground by then Pirates first baseman Randall Simon while she was wearing an Italian sausage costume during a Brewers game last July. Block is hanging up her casings to study psychology at Wisconsin. After Simon whacked her with his bat (he was fined $432 for disorderly conduct), Block was presented with a certificate of bravery by the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council. "I'm proud of it," Block said. "I didn't even know there was a hot dog council."

Reprimanded
For giving a 13-year-old player a "Crybaby Award" at a team banquet, James Guillen, the basketball coach at Pleasantville ( N.J.) Middle School. Guillen, 24, who also works as a special-ed teacher at the school, presented Terrence Philo Jr. with a trophy reading PLEASANTVILLE M.S. 2004 BOYS BASKETBALL CRYBABY AWARD. According to the boy's father, Terrence Philo Sr., the coach told the attendees that his son received the award because "he begged to get in the game, and all he did was whine." Guillen is expected to host another awards ceremony and deliver a new trophy and a public apology to the player.

Requested
By heavyweight boxer Wladimir Klitschko, that U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden investigate Klitschko's April 10 loss to Lamon Brewster. The fight in Las Vegas was stopped after the fifth round when Klitschko, who had dominated the first four rounds, couldn't pull himself off the canvas after being decked by Brewster. The 28-year-old Ukrainian, who is the former WBO heavyweight champion, believes that he was drugged or poisoned. In a letter to Bogden an attorney for Klitschko noted that a postfight exam revealed Klitschko's blood sugar was twice the normal level. And shortly before the fight Brewster's odds dropped from 11 to 1 to 3� to 1, indicating that most of the late money had been bet on the eventual winner. (Though one experienced bookmaker said, "It doesn't take a lot of money to move a line in a fight like that.") "I have thought long and hard about requesting an investigation because I am concerned that the public...will see me as making excuses," said Klitschko. "That is not my intention. I simply want to know the truth."

Died
Of leukemia, Darrell Johnson, 75, who in 1975 managed the Red Sox to within a game of a World Series championship. In Game 7 against the Reds the teams were tied 3-3 in the bottom of the eighth when Johnson made a pitching move that stood as the most second-guessed in Boston until Grady Little left Pedro Martinez on the mound in last year's ALCS. Johnson pulled Jim Willoughby, who had pitched 1? scoreless innings, for a pinch hitter, forcing him to send rookie Jim Burton to the mound in the ninth. Burton allowed the deciding run. "There wasn't anything negative about the Series," Johnson said years later. "The only negative was that we got beat."

Died
Of lung cancer, comedian Alan King, 76. An avid tennis fan who was a mainstay courtside at the U.S. Open, King brought pro tennis to Las Vegas in 1972 with the Alan King Tennis Classic, which ran for more than 15 years and featured a pro-am that attracted stars such as Bill Cosby and Neil Simon. King won the tournament once with John Newcombe, but he played less in recent years as arthritis set in. He continued to work, however, mixing warm wit with outrage. Said comedian Jerry Stiller, "He was like a Jewish Will Rogers."