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last updated: May 14, 2008 01:37:04 AM

Court rejects coach's appeal in bean case

The Pennsylvania Superior Court has rejected the appeal of a former youth baseball coach convicted of offering a player $25 to bean a 9-year-old autistic teammate. The court didn't consider arguments on behalf of 31-year-old Mark Downs Jr. of Dunbar, saying his attorney missed a filing deadline by two weeks. Downs has been sentenced to 1 to 6 six years in prison, but has remained free on bond pending appeal. Downs was convicted of corruption of minors and simple assault for offering an 8-year-old player money to hit a mildly autistic teammate with a ball during warmups before a June 2005 playoff game. Prosecutors say Downs wanted the autistic boy to be hurt and unable to play in the game. It's not clear if Downs will file further appeals.

Goodell considers Spygate case closed

Former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh disclosed no new rules violations in the Spygate scandal during his meeting with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell or in the tapes that the league released Tuesday. The clips, shown after Walsh's nearly 3½-hour meeting with Goodell, cut between shots of opposing coaches sending in signals and the play that followed. "The fundamental information that Matt provided was consistent with what we disciplined the Patriots for last fall," said Goodell, who didn't anticipate punishing the team any further. The most scandalous part of the tapes shown before Goodell's news conference had nothing to do with stealing signals -- it was several minutes of close-ups of San Diego Chargers cheerleaders performing during a 2002 game.

Pooch goes postal on famous carrier

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is examining whether a Huntington Beach woman had criminal intent when she turned her dog on a mail carrier -- who turned out to be Olympic medal-winning swimmer Shirley Babashoff. Spokeswoman Renee Focht says Babashoff was trying to deliver a registered letter recently when the woman let her cocker spaniel out of the house. Babashoff told a 911 dispatcher that the woman, too, came out and reacted verbally. Babashoff said she locked herself in her mail truck as the woman banged on its window. A woman at the house later told a crew from KCAL-TV that what happened wasn't an altercation but a misunderstanding. Babashoff won a total of eight medals in the 1972 and '76 Olympic Games.

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