FOOTBALL

HOUSE COMMITTEE TURNS ATTENTION TO NFL

The congressional committee that investigated steroid use in baseball will turn its investigation to the same problem in football. The panel said yesterday it will ask NFL officials and union representatives to testify at a hearing next week.

“A public review of the NFL’s strategy for combatting steroid use marks the next step in our investigation,” said Rep. Tom Davis, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee.

Invited to the April 27 hearing are NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue; Gene Upshaw, vice president of the NFL Players Association, and Harold Henderson, the NFL’s executive vice president for labor relations.

Davis and the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Henry Waxman of California, sent a letter last month to Tagliabue asking for the number of drug tests each year, the number of positive results, and which substances are tested for.

BASEBALL

PADRES HIRE ALDERSON AS CEO

Sandy Alderson was hired as chief executive officer of the San Diego Padres yesterday and given a clear directive by owner John Moores.

Moores hired Alderson away from the commissioner’s office, where he’s been executive vice president for baseball operations since September 1998. He was given a five-year contract and will become a minority owner.

WAKEFIELD SIGNS EXTENSION WITH RED SOX

Tim Wakefield, the longest-tenured player on the Boston Red Sox, agreed to a one-year contract extension through 2006 that gives the team the power to keep him for the rest of his career. The 38-year-old knuckleballer had been signed through 2005.The new contract has a club option to extend it for 2007 and each season after that.

Wakefield is second on the team’s career list with 390 appearances, third with 1,866 innings, third with 253 starts, and seventh with 116 wins. He also has 1,343 strikeouts for the Red Sox – ahead of Cy Young and behind only Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez.

SOCCER

RAMOS, HARKES, BALBOA ELECTED TO HALL OF FAME

Former U.S. national team stars Tab Ramos, John Harkes, and Marcelo Balboa were elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame yesterday and will be inducted August 29.

Balboa, a defender, and Ramos, a midfielder, played in the 1990, 1994, and 1998 World Cups. Harkes, a midfielder, was in the 1990 and 1994 tournaments and was the national team’s captain.

– Associated Press