NFL sends signal to gangs

Roger Goodell is making sure the Bloods and the Crips have no place on an NFL football field.

Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times wrote Wednesday that the NFL is "concerned that some players might celebrate by flashing the hand signals of street gangs."

"There have been some suspected things we've seen," Milt Ahlerich, the league's vice president of security, told Farmer. "When we see it, we quietly jump on it immediately, directly with the team and the player or employee involved to cease and desist. Period."

Well, the T-Birds and Pink Ladies had better put the kibosh on this, now.

• THE MASSES HAVE SPOKEN -- Some 2,400 respondents to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll on Tuesday said they would not pay an extra $10,000 for University of Georgia football season tickets.

Doesn't matter, though -- the Bulldogs are expecting the 698 tickets available to be swept up.

While there's no good reason to spend $10,000 on tickets, there is an explanation: The Bulldogs are ranked No. 1 in many preseason polls.

• ALL THIS FOR ONE SOCCER MATCH? -- Twelve rabid fans of the Manchester City soccer team decided airfare would be too high to see their favorite team play in a UEFA Cup match today against EB/Streymur on the Faroe Islands off Scotland.

So they drove from Manchester, England, to Aberdeen, Scotland, hopped on an overnight ferry to Lerwick on the Shetland Isles, then chipped in Wednesday for a 72-foot charter fishing boat named "Three Sisters."

That left them praying for clear skies on the roughly 26-hour journey -- giving a whole new meaning to fair-weather fans.

• OH, THOSE KIDS -- NBC News producer John Rutherford wrangled an interview with the oldest living baseball player, and Bill Werber had some choice words for today's ballplayers.

"No, I haven't seen a ballgame in four or five years," the 100-year-old Werber told Rutherford. "I don't like the appearance of a lot of the players. The hair's too long. Their beards are too evident. They're a grubby-looking bunch of caterwaulers."

Well, gee golly, Mr. Werber, those young whippersnappers with their newfangled automobiles really must rub ya the wrong way.

• T(ENNIS) AND A(RT) -- Move over, Anna Kournikova. Beat it, Maria Sharapova.

There's a new darling in the female tennis world, and she's not afraid to bare it. All.

American tennis player Ashley Harkleroad -- ranked No. 61, but who really cares? -- is in the buff in this month's Playboy. The cover girl is shown in a skimpy tennis skirt and with a towel conspicuously covering her, umm, rack-ets.

The 23-year-old from Georgia made the decision to appear nude in the iconic magazine while recovering from surgery to remove an ovarian cyst.

"I thought, 'Well, I'm not really doing anything right now,' so I thought about it and it was something that I did," Harkleroad told reporters in May. "I'm proud of my body. I was representing a female athlete's body."

COMPILED BY JON GOLD REVIEW-JOURNAL