Manning soaking-up spotlight\nCHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Ricky Manning Jr. stepped out of the sauna and into the locker room, pausing to flex like a bodybuilder.\nHis Carolina Panthers teammates stared in disbelief, then burst out laughing.\nWith four postseason interceptions, the rookie cornerback has turned into a star and is loving every minute of it.\n"I think Ricky wants to be a model or something," safety Deon Grant said. "He thinks he's so pretty and so special -- he thought that even before he started playing well. Now that he's playing as good as he is, he's out of control."\nBut that's okay with the Panthers.\nAfter all, Manning is learning as he goes, and Carolina might not be headed to the Super Bowl to play the New England Patriots Feb. 1 if not for him.\nAfter replacing an injured Terry Cousin in the starting lineup with four games left in the regular season, Manning has improved steadily. He had three interceptions in the regular season and returned one 27 yards for a touchdown in the finale against the New York Giants.\nHis play hit another level in the postseason.\nAgainst Dallas in the first round, he allowed only two receptions and no touchdowns while breaking up two passes.\nHe saved Carolina's season the next week in St. Louis, stripping the ball away from receiver Torry Holt in overtime to stop the potential game-winning drive. That interception set up the Panthers' own score to send them to the NFC championship game.
St. Louis Cardinals manager unhurt\nST. LOUIS -- St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said Thursday he was unfazed when a small jet in which he was riding skidded a day earlier off a snow-covered Colorado runway, joking he's had equally -- if not more -- troubling times in a baseball dugout.\n"One guy said, 'You're really handling this all right,'" La Russa said of the accident that happened shortly after 1:30 a.m. Central time Wednesday at Pueblo Memorial Airport. "More tongue in cheek, I said, 'After you have one-run leads in the ninth for 20 years,'" a minor landing issue gets easier to brush off.\nLa Russa said he was "hitching a ride home" to California with pals after a Tuesday night banquet of St. Louis' Baseball Writers Association of America chapter when the jet landed to refuel in Pueblo. La Russa was the only person affiliated with the Cardinals on board.\nThe Falcon corporate jet landed "pretty gentle" but began to spin when only one of the twin-engine plane's two reverse thrusters used to assist in braking deployed, causing the plane to veer off the runway, said Jerry Brienza, the airport's operations manager.\nThe plane came to rest about 100 feet off the runway, its wing stuck in a snow bank and its right landing gear collapsed, said Mike Fergus, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman in Seattle.
