Missed it by that much

Since the Pitching in for Kids golf fund-raiser began 10 years ago, no one has hit the hole-in-one bonus shot that would send $1 million to local charities. But yesterday former Red Sox slugger Jim Rice nearly nailed it - in the rain. As Red Sox players Tim Wakefield and Jason Varitek, the event's hosts, watched in amazement, Rice's attempt to land the 165-yard drive on the 18th fairway of Hingham's Black Rock course fell just short. "Four feet from the hole and pin high," said John Cox, whose company Tournament Headquarters in Walpole insured the shot for charity. "It was the closest I've ever seen." Even without the hole-in-one, the event raised $180,000 for charity.

If the movie based on Sylvia Plath's book "The Bell Jar" is bad, it won't be because the star was unprepared. Julia Stiles is doing some serious homework as she prepares to play the tragic heroine of Plath's one and only novel. Over the weekend, the actress attended a symposium at Smith College commemorating the writer's would-be 75th birthday. (Plath, a Smith alum, committed suicide in 1963 at the age of 30.) We're told Stiles attended every talk of the symposium, taking notes and asking questions of the high-powered panel of Plath scholars. During a discussion with the poet's onetime roommate Marcia Brown Stern, former boyfriend Philip McCurdy, and classmate Elinor Friedman Klein, the actress inquired how the poet "carried herself." In response, McCurdy recalled Plath's "long legs." Stiles, who is producing the movie version of Plath's book, also took a tour of Northampton's Academy of Music Theatre, where, we're told, she may premiere "The Bell Jar." The actress said she'll be back on campus soon to look at a gown once worn by Plath.

Roger Clemens is being accused of stepping out on his wife - with country singer Mindy McCready . The Daily News of New York reported yesterday that Clemens began a decade-long romance with McCready while pitching for the BoSox. The tab tattles that McCready was a 15-year-old aspiring singer and Clemens a 28-year-old married father of two when the two first met at a bar in Fort Myers, Fla. Clemens's attorney Rusty Hardin confirmed the long-term relationship but said it was not sexual. The allegations come as Clemens is defending himself against claims, made by his former personal trainer Brian McNamee, that he took human growth hormone. Clemens has sued McNamee for defamation, a move he may regret. "When you sue for defamation, you put your whole reputation in the community at issue," McNamee's attorney Richard Emery told the Daily News. "Anything is fair game, including [Clemens's] claim of sanctimonious purity." McCready, whose debut LP "Ten Thousand Angels" was a hit in the '90s, was allegedly the Cy Young winner's sweetheart during his stints with the Sox, Blue Jays, and Yankees.

Yet another nude pic of Gisele Bundchen is going on the auction block. Tom Brady's lady is bare-chested and smoking a butt in the photo, which was snapped in 1999 by shutterbug Michel Comte. It'll be auctioned May 15 at Christie's London. Just a few weeks ago, you'll recall, Irving Penn's black-and-white shot of the supermodel sold at auction for $193,000.

While his bandmate Tom Hamilton was at Urban Improv's "Banned in Boston" benefit in Cambridge, Aerosmith screamer Steven Tyler was at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, where he said hello to Pink.

Baby Mama, indeed. Just a day after Amy Poehler's movie "Baby Mama" became the weekend's top-grossing film comes word that the Burlington native and her husband, Will Arnett, are expecting their first child. The couple told family and friends recently, and their publicist, Lewis Key, confirmed the news to the media yesterday. The couple told friends the baby is due in the fall and that they are waiting to find out if they are having a boy or a girl. The 36-year-old "Saturday Night Live" star and her 37-year-old husband, a "30 Rock" regular, appeared in two movies together last year - Will Ferrell's "Blades of Glory" and Boston writer/director Dave McLaughlin's "On Broadway."

Channel 7 consumer reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan won the Agatha Award in the "Best First Mystery" category for "Prime Time." Ryan won her prize - a ceramic teapot - at the Malice Domestic conference over the weekend in Washington, D.C.

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