Sports comes to standstill following terrorist attacks

Sports came to a standstill Tuesday in the wake of terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, with major league baseball postponing a full schedule of regular-season games for the first time since D-Day in 1944.\nThe daily grind of professional and college practices halted as athletes and their coaches tried to come to grips with the tragedy.\nBallparks were empty, racetracks were dark and sports television networks dropped highlight films and replayed scenes of the day's devastation.\n"This is a sad, sad day in America," golfer Tiger Woods said.\nBaseball, with just 2 1/2 weeks remaining in its pennant races and teams fighting for playoff berths, was the most immediately affected of the major sports. Aside from work stoppages, it was the first time since the Allied invasion of France that baseball wiped out a whole day of regular-season play.\n"In the interest of security and out of a sense of deep mourning for the national tragedy that has occurred today, all major league baseball games for today have been canceled," baseball commissioner Bud Selig said.\nThe NFL, criticized for playing after President Kennedy's assassination in 1963, said it wasn't sure whether to play this weekend's schedule.\nCollege football commissioners considered postponing the weekend's entire schedule of games, with a decision expected as early as Wednesday. Three games set for Thursday night and three on Saturday were postponed.\nThe PGA Tour canceled Thursday's starts of the World Golf Championship and two other tournaments.\nStunned Olympic officials said security for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics will be completely re-evaluated but vowed the games will go on as planned in five months\nA $200 million plan to protect athletes and spectators is no longer sufficient in the wake of Tuesday's attacks, said Mitt Romney, president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee.\n"I look for the federal government to revisit the public safety plans for the games," Romney said. "We will be fully engaged in that process and will make it our highest priority."\nGarnet "Ace" Bailey, 53, a former NHL player with Boston, Detroit and St. Louis, and now director of pro scouting for the Los Angeles Kings, was aboard United Airlines Flight 175 that hit the World Trade Center. Mark Bavis, an amateur scout for the Kings, also was aboard.\nIn Milwaukee, Selig called off the baseball owners' quarterly meeting that was set to start Tuesday but did not make any decision about Wednesday's games.\n"I will continue to monitor the situation on a daily basis and make ongoing decisions accordingly," he said. "My deepest sympathy and prayers go out to the families and victims of this horrendous series of events."\nIt was only the third time the major leagues postponed an entire day's schedule, aside from labor strife, said Scot Mondore of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.\nThe others were Aug. 2, 1923, when President Warren G. Harding died, and June 6, 1944, when Allied forces invaded France in World War II. Exhibition games were called off April 14, 1945, two days after the death of President Roosevelt.\nIn 1945, the All-Star game was canceled because of wartime travel restrictions. The 1918 season ended a month early on Sept. 2 by order of the U.S. War Department. Teams were given the choice whether to play after the assassination of Martin Luther King in April 1968.\n"I was stunned by the JFK assassination, and it took me a long time to get over that. I didn't think that was possible," Selig said at a news conference. "The (San Francisco) earthquake in '89, the World Series, that was a tragedy. But this is incomprehensible. The greatest country in the history in the world being attacked. So all of this doesn't mean very much today."\nSelig said he and his wife were in New York last week, and "we went to the World Trade Centers because I hadn't been there in a while. Now to believe that they don't exist anymore."\nYankee Stadium, perhaps the building that most symbolizes American sports, was evacuated within 90 minutes of the first attack. Security was tightened outside the 78-year-old ballpark, located in the South Bronx, more than 10 miles from the World Trade Center.\n"The ballpark is ringed with police," Yankees spokesman Rick Cerrone said after leaving his office.\nThe Chicago White Sox arrived at their midtown Manhattan hotel early Tuesday for the start of their series against the Yankees. Bullpen coach Art Kusnyer, out for a morning stroll, looked down Fifth Avenue and stared at the cloud of smoke.\n"All of a sudden, the whole tower just collapsed," he said. "All those poor people. It was hard to watch."\nThe NFL, which played just two days after Kennedy's assassination, was unsure of how it would react.\n"We'll gather information and speak to several parties within the next 24 to 48 hours," league spokesman Joe Browne said.\nJacksonville Jaguars coach Tom Coughlin's son was in the World Trade Center when the first plane crashed into it. Tim Coughlin escaped uninjured.\nThe PGA Tour canceled Thursday's starts of the World Golf Championship and two other tournaments. In St. Louis, only 46 of the 67 players had arrived for the World Golf Championship, the others stranded across the country, a group that included PGA champion David Toms, Phil Mickelson and Davis Love III.\nWoods, who is accompanied a retired FBI agent when he plays, looked down at his right arm after he finished his round.\n"Look at this, I've got goosebumps," he said, rubbing his left hand over them.\nCommissioner Tim Finchem said the tournament will begin Friday with 36 holes.\nThe Tampa Bay Classic will open with 18 holes each on Friday and Saturday and a 36-hole conclusion. The same schedule has been applied to the Buy.com Tour event in Oregon.\nThe Senior Tour will remain on schedule, with a 54-hole event that starts Friday in North Carolina.\nThe NCAA said conferences and schools have the authority to determine whether to play college football games this weekend as well as hold other events.\n"The games themselves are insignificant in the face of what has happened today," NCAA president Cedric Dempsey said. "Our focus is entirely on the safety of student-athletes, athletics personnel and fans."\nCommissioners of the NCAA's Division I-A conferences, including the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and Southeastern, held a conference call to discuss their options for staging this weekend's football games. There were 116 Division I games scheduled for Thursday through Saturday.\nThree games scheduled for Thursday night were called off: Texas Tech at Texas-El Paso was tentatively pushed back to Saturday; Ohio at North Carolina State was rescheduled for Nov. 24; and Penn State at Virginia was not immediately rescheduled.\nSaturday night's Arizona State-UCLA football game at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., was postponed; possibly to Dec. 1; Ohio State postponed Saturday's game with San Diego State until Oct. 20; Brown's game at San Diego on Saturday was canceled.\nThe ACC postponed all sports events through Thursday. In Atlanta, Georgia Tech's football team wondered about its biggest game of the season, Saturday at Florida States. The Yellow Jackets are scheduled to take a charter flight to Tallahassee, but they could switch to buses for a 4 1/2-hour ride.\n"We should play the game as long as everybody is safe," Georgia Tech safety Chris Young said. "If we are in any danger, I don't want to play."\nNASCAR canceled Friday's qualifying for the New Hampshire 300 in Louden but made no decision concerning the race itself. NASCAR president Mike Helton called off the activities and said the field for Sunday's race would be set by points.\nThe Indy Racing League will decide Wednesday on the status of Sunday's Chevy 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.\nMajor League Soccer postponed all four of Wednesday night's games.\nIn Columbus, Ohio, the U.S. Women's Cup doubleheader at Crew Stadium involving the United States against Japan and Germany vs. China was canceled.\nThe Thoroughbred Racing Association canceled all its cards Tuesday, shuttering tracks at Delaware Park in Stanton, Del; Finger Lakes in Farmington, N.J.; the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J.; Philadelphia Park in Bensalem Pa.; and Prairie Meadows in Altoona, Iowa. Cards also were wiped out at Great Lake Downs in Muskegon, Mich.; Fairplex in Pomona, Calif.; and Moutaineer Park in Chester, W.Va.\nArlington Park is Arlington Heights, Ill.; Belmont Park in New York; Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore; and Turfway Park in Florence, Ky., canceled Wednesday's cards.\nThe Swiss-based International Olympic Committee expressed a "profound sense of shock and disbelief" at the attacks.\nIOC president Jacques Rogge expressed "deepest sympathy" to the families of the victims and sent letters of condolence to President Bush, the U.S. Olympic Committee and the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee.\nBaseball's minor leagues -- their regular seasons over -- postponed postseason games in all nine leagues that were to play Tuesday.\n"Out of respect to the families and friends of those people who lost their lives or were injured in today's tragic events, we have postponed all playoff games scheduled for tonight in the United States," said Mike Moore, president of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, the governing body for the minors.\nThe International, Pacific Coast, Eastern, Southern, Texas, California, Florida State, Midwest and South Atlantic leagues were affected.\nIn hockey, the Toronto Maple Leafs postponed their trip to Newfoundland for training camp after Canadian airports grounded all outgoing flights. The Leafs will work out Wednesday in Toronto.\nThe Buffalo Sabres, fearing delays at the Canadian border, changed plans to open training camp Wednesday in St. Catharines, Ontario, and instead will work out at their suburban Buffalo complex.\nBaseball teams didn't know when they would play again. Atlanta pitcher John Burkett was stuck at his suburban Dallas home because of canceled flights.\n"Whenever it's deemed safe to hold large public gatherings again, we'll resume, but I'm sure we won't do it until then," said Braves president Stan Kasten, who planned to rent a car to drive home from Milwaukee. The Seattle Mariners' delegation also planned to drive home.\nSome tried to go on with life as normal. In San Diego, Padres pitcher Trevor Hoffman went to Qualcomm Stadium to get in a workout.\n"I've got to keep some semblance of productivity in regard to my job, if we're going to continue on in the near future," he said.