The Beat

THE TURIN OLYMPICS have yet to start, but they already have one detractor. While carrying the Olympic torch through a fashion district in Milan, designer Giorgio Armani teed off on the orange-and-white tracksuit he was forced to don. "I certainly wouldn't have designed it with these colors," he said. "These aren't even wintry colors. They are kind of Mexican."

? In the February edition of Allure, Sheryl Crow posed in a wedding gown and said of her fianc�, Lance Armstrong: "I want to be where he is.... We'll have somebody ride up and sprinkle us over the Alps [when we die]." Last week, though, the couple backpedaled. Crow, 44, and Armstrong, 34, who met in 2003 and became engaged last year, issued a joint statement on Feb. 3, announcing "a very tough decision to split up." (They declined to elaborate.) The planned nuptials would have been the first for Crow (left) and Armstrong's second.

? Last week Luther Campbell called Snoop Dogg a "pimp" and a "hood" after the rappers/coaches saw their youth football teams of 12- and 13-year-olds come to blows at a charity tournament in Miami. Snoop, however, has no ill will. "There's no beef, just love," Snoop told SI last week in Detroit, where he was attending the Super Bowl. "We'll play again," he promised. "But next time we'll play in Los Angeles. On my turf. In my hood." On Sunday evening Snoop (who was wearing a leather jacket emblazoned with SUPER STEELERS) stood atop a table at a PlayStation after party in the Gem Theatre, across the street from Ford Field, and waved a Terrible Towel before hanging out with country singer Hank Williams Jr. and Detroit native Kid Rock. At 1 a.m. Williams, a close friend of Steelers coach Bill Cowher, took his new pals to a private bash for Steelers players and coaches, where he said he would "initiate" Snoop and Kid Rock into the Steelers family.

? Did you know that a not-for-profit group called Jewish Major Leaguers puts out a set of baseball cards focusing on Jewish players? The 2006 Update Edition paid tribute to Margaret Wigiser, a former All-American Girls Professional Baseball League player, by issuing her her very own card. (She was the basis for a character in A League of Their Own.) One problem: She's not Jewish. When Wigiser (above) informed the group that she's Catholic, they began pulling the card from all sets that hadn't already been sold. (The initial run was 10,000 sets.) Said Martin Abramowitz, president of Jewish Major Leaguers, "She is as proud of her religion as we are of ours, and we respect her request."