Marbury files grievance over fine

Stephon Marbury has filed a grievance over the fine the New York Knicks gave him for missing a game in Phoenix last month. Marbury believes he was given permission to miss the game and has asked the players' association to begin the grievance process, a person with knowledge of the decision said yesterday. The point guard left Phoenix before the Knicks' game Nov. 13 after clashing with Isiah Thomas when the coach was considering removing him from the starting lineup. Marbury returned to New York and the Knicks fined him a one-game salary, which would cost more than $180,000. Marbury has missed seven of the last 10 games following the death of his father Dec. 2. It is not known if Marbury will play today when the Knicks host the Los Angeles Lakers . . . Clippers reserve forward Paul Davis will be sidelined indefinitely because of a knee injury. Davis tore the anterior cruciate ligament and lateral meniscus in his right knee during the second quarter of Friday night's game in Dallas.

Marion Jones used several different performance-enhancing drugs over a substantial period of time, according to a detailed doping calendar that was part of several pages of court documents released. Jones's alleged doping regimen was part of a Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative ledger that featured the names of athletes along with the performance-enhancing drugs they were taking and results of urine tests. The other names on the list are redacted. After long denying she ever had used performance-enhancing drugs, Jones admitted in October that she'd taken the designer steroid "the clear" from September 2000 to July 2001. "The clear" has been linked to BALCO, the lab at the center of the steroids scandal in professional sports. Jones took EPO, human growth hormone, and THG using drops and injections, according to the court documents that show use in 2000 and 2001. Jones's October doping admission came as part of her guilty plea to lying to federal investigators in the BALCO case about using steroids. She will be sentenced Jan. 11. In the court documents, former BALCO vice president Jack Valente acknowledges creating the doping calendar and identifies the "Marion J" entries as referring to Jones.

The ATP suspended Italians Potito Starace and Daniele Bracciali for making bets - some as little as $7 - on tennis matches involving other players. The Italian tennis federation denounced the penalties by the governing body as an "injustice," and the players said they have been made scapegoats. Starace, ranked 31st, was suspended for six weeks and fined $30,000, the Italian federation said. Bracciali, ranked 258th, was banned for three months and fined $20,000. Both suspensions take effect Jan. 1. The federation said Starace made five bets for a total of $130 two years ago, and Bracciali made about 50 bets of $7 each from 2004-05. The federation said the two were not aware of the ATP's betting regulations, and they stopped placing bets as soon as they learned it was against the rules. Another Italian, Alessio Di Mauro, became the first player sanctioned under the ATP's new anti-corruption rules when he received a nine-month ban in November, also for betting on matches.

Manuel Almunia saved a penalty kick to help Arsenal beat Tottenham, 2-1, and extend its Premier League lead over defending champion Manchester United in London. Tottenham offset a 48th-minute goal by Emmanuel Adebayor with a score by Dimitar Berbatov in the 66th. Almunia dived to his right to block Robbie Keane's penalty kick in the 74th, and two minutes later Niklas Bendtner headed home a corner by Cesc Fabregas for the winner. At the other end of the standings, Clint Dempsey's tying goal lifted Fulham out of the relegation zone in a 1-1 draw with next-to-last Wigan. . . . In Milan, Italy, Francesco Totti scored twice to help AS Roma beat Sampdoria, 2-0, and move within four points of Italian league leader Inter Milan. Totti converted a penalty kick in the 18th minute and tapped in Marco Cassetti's goalmouth assist in the 90th. It was Totti's first domestic game in more than a month following a foot injury . . . David Silva and substitute Nikola Zigic scored to help Valencia overcome its goalkeeping errors and rally for a 2-2 draw at Zaragoza in the Spanish league. Silva ran onto Joaquin Sanchez's short pass and scored in the 82d minute with a curling shot . . . Second-place Nancy held first-place Lyon to a 1-1 draw in the French league in Paris. Francis Malonga Ntsayi scored the tying goal in the 87th minute. The ball bounced off defender Francois Clerc's back and Lyon goalkeeper Remy Vercoutre . . . In Amsterdam, Kenneth Perez scored twice, leading defending champion PSV Eindhoven past FC Utrecht, 4-1, and into first place in the Dutch League . . . Celtic was held to a 1-1 tie at home by Hibernian, giving Rangers a great chance to take over first place in the Scottish Premier League in Glasgow.

Tommy Byrne, who fulfilled a boyhood dream by pitching for the New York Yankees and won a game during the 1955 World Series, has died in Wake Forest, N.C. He was 87. Byrne, who served two terms as Wake Forest mayor, died Thursday, his son John said. Tommy Byrne had congestive heart failure and was in declining health the last six weeks. After two years at what was then Wake Forest College, Byrne signed with the Yankees in 1940. In his rookie year of 1943, he played in 11 games and had a 2-1 record. Byrne eventually was traded to the St. Louis Browns and also pitched for the Chicago White Sox and the Washington Senators . . . Pascal Pelletier scored the Providence Bruins' only goal as the the team fell to the visiting Lowell Devils, 3-1. Patrick Davis, Stephen Gionta, and Petr Vrana scored for the Devils, who got 38 saves from Frank Doyle. Tuukka Rask stopped 18 of 20 shots for the Bruins.