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State Sen. Chaka Fattah won a resounding victory in Tuesday's Democratic primary over incumbent Lucien Blackwell by beating the party bosses and the 30-second spot. The relatively young policy wonk touted his sound accomplishments and visionary ideas, and he put a fresh, savvy political organization on the streets to carry his message. People got it. Philadelphia voters, who were understandably disappointed when they lost the congressional force of former U.S. Rep. William Gray 3d in 1991, found a worthy replacement.

Sure, to be a "star," you need the artistic or athletic skills that set you above the countless others who wish they could be stars. But there's more to it than talent - it's an attitude expressed this week by two very disparate performers. Riccardo Muti on his Philadelphia Orchestra: "The players want to be good, to prove to themselves that they are good . . . Being with this orchestra when it plays this way night after night is the reason for being in this profession. " Retired Phils star Tug McGraw on his career: "The best job in the world is to be a big-league . . . relief pitcher . . . You get to go to every game . . . and maybe two or three times a week they ask you to pitch a couple of innings.

Say it ain't so, Lenny. It's unthinkable that somewhere in the world, Leonard Bernstein isn't conducting a concert. One of the most illustrious alumni of Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music, he is a musical superstar - thanks to his television charisma, the scope of his talents and his once-inexhaustible energy. It turns out, though, that this energy isn't inexhaustible. Battling respiratory ailments, the 72-year-old Bernstein has hung up his baton. Bernstein plans to continue composing (he's created "West Side Story," "On the Town" and an extensive symphonic repertoire)

VILLANOVA WAS the favorite. Not only to win the race, but perhaps even to challenge a 24-year-old world record set by another group of Wildcats at these same Penn Relays. But sometimes the storyline doesn't turn out to be as much about who takes the victory lap as how it unfolds. This was one of those instances. The Distance Medley Relay is the marquee event of the Carnival's opening day, even if it did start some 90 minutes late because of lightning delays. Yet as far as the Wildcats - who'd recently hoisted the hardware at the NCAA indoor championships in program-record time - were concerned, it was over before things ever had a chance to get interesting.

His grip is almost as good as his stride. Track phenom and part-time souvenir collector Alan Webb proved that yesterday at the Penn Relays. Just minutes after he helped South Lakes High of Virginia win the Championship of America 4x800-meter relay in 7 minutes, 41.75 seconds at Franklin Field, Webb tried to leave the track with the red-and-blue baton as a memento. Unfortunately for Webb, a meet official spotted the booty first and tried to pry it from his hands. Webb gripped it tightly.

Penn State and Villanova turned the IC4A track and field championships into their own private dual meet yesterday and produced one of the most bizarre finishes in the 110-year history of the meet. Surviving a daylong scoring assault by the Wildcats, plus the loss of sprinter-hurdler Michael Timpson, Penn State edged Villanova, 69-68, for its fifth IC4A title overall and its first since 1974. Maryland finished third with 42 points, while George Mason, the 1985 champion, was fourth with 38. They were followed, in order, by Boston University with 34, Princeton with 32, East Carolina with 31, Iona with 29, Manhattan and James Madison with 28 each and Dartmouth with 24. But while the IC4A cast included 58 schools and 850 athletes, three of whom broke meet records, the focal point was the Penn State-Villanova battle - a matchup between the Lions' quantity and the Wildcats' quality.

His legs carried him across an ocean and around the world. They took him from Ireland to the United States. They sent him to Los Angeles and Seoul, to Barcelona and Atlanta for the Olympic Games. At each stop, and hundreds more in between, the world's best milers waited for him. But for all the places Marcus O'Sullivan has been, and all the miles he traveled looking to run four perfect laps around a track, the former Villanova standout - and current head coach - remembers finding his biggest athletic challenge close to his adopted home.

The 113th edition of the Penn Relays take place this week - the decathlon and heptathlon begin on Tuesday - so track and field athletes across the nation are preparing to descend on Franklin Field. But no team, not the University of Texas men nor the powerful South Carolina women, is more anxious to hit the track than the Pleasantville High School 4x800-meter relay team. The Greyhounds, who inexplicably dropped the baton in last year's Championship of America final, are determined to erase their yearlong nightmare.

For the 14th time in 21 seasons, those repetitious runners from Arkansas captured the distance-medley relay yesterday in the 108th Penn Relays track and field carnival. But it was Villanova losing its grip, more than the Razorbacks' continued dominance, that left the sun-baked Franklin Field crowd of 39,104 baffled by the bizarre nature of the event. For the record, the Arkansas foursome of Dan Lincoln, Robbie Stewart, Chris Mulvaney and Alistair Cragg got to the finish line nine meters ahead of runner-up Stanford, to win in 9 minutes, 31.21 seconds.

Conductors are discovering competition coming up, literally, from behind their backs and over their shoulders. One after another, violinists have claimed music-director positions and guest-conducting engagements in some of the world's better orchestras. Leading from the concertmaster's chair, they don't necessarily hold a baton or reap the glory of their more Bernsteinian colleagues. But they're changing how music is made — and, perhaps, how it's heard. "Each player has enormous responsibility," says violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, who is in her fourth season as music director of the New Century Chamber Orchestra in San Francisco.

A police officer was released from the hospital Saturday evening after being beaten with his own baton during what authorities called a "life-or-death struggle" Saturday morning that ended with a robbery suspect wounded outside a busy shopping center in West Philadelphia. "This was an absolute battle," said Lt. Ray Evers, a police spokesman, "and we are very lucky this officer was not killed. " About 10:30 a.m., the officer pulled up to investigate the report of an attempted robbery outside a restaurant near the Park West Town Center at North 52d and West Jefferson Streets.

An attempted-robbery suspect who got into a violent confrontation with a police officer Saturday morning in West Philadelphia — allegedly beating the cop with the cop's baton before the officer shot and injured him — was identified Sunday as Sidney Clayton, 31, of 34th Street near Haverford Avenue in Mantua. Police Lt. Ray Evers said Clayton, who is at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in critical but stable condition, was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, possession of an instrument of crime and related offenses.

Nobody hit Doc Patton like a linebacker on a blind-side blitz. Nobody dropped the baton. Nobody ran out of the exchange lane, threw a shoe, pulled a hamstring, twisted an ankle, lost a contact lens, or overslept and showed up late. For the USA Red 4x100-meter men's relay team, that made for a successful Saturday at the Penn Relays. In other news, Patton, Mike Rodgers, Justin Gatlin, and Walter Dix also won their U.S. vs. the World race in a blistering time of 38.40 seconds.

Conductors are discovering competition coming up, literally, from behind their backs and over their shoulders. One after another, violinists have claimed music-director positions and guest-conducting engagements in some of the world's better orchestras. Leading from the concertmaster's chair, they don't necessarily hold a baton or reap the glory of their more Bernsteinian colleagues. But they're changing how music is made — and, perhaps, how it's heard. "Each player has enormous responsibility," says violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, who is in her fourth season as music director of the New Century Chamber Orchestra in San Francisco.

Philadelphia Orchestra executives came to the Wells Fargo Center recently to see the orchestra perform the national anthem on the big screen. In an effort to provide class, and improve the overall fan experience, the 76ers' new CEO, Adam Aron, hired the orchestra to record the anthem. The video will be played at every home game. I was hanging with Aron that day, met the orchestra execs, and told them I had seen the Brahms Requiem . This really shocked them. I was impersonating a sports reporter, after all. Shows you how stereotypes run deep in both directions.

Give yourselves a hand, Occupy Philly. Or better yet, flash the world a peace sign. Because if there's one big thing that our local movement has taught us, it's that Martin Luther King Jr.'s template of nonviolent protest works. Not that it's ever been easy. You can go back to the oppressively resistant days of the civil rights movement to see why. But you really don't have to look any farther than what happened at UC-Davis over the weekend. Students sitting in protest, their arms locked and heads bowed, were engaged in peaceful civil disobedience when campus police in full riot gear pepper-sprayed them at point-blank range.

COLONIE, N.Y. - A burly, incoherent 32-year-old man who rampaged through an upstate New York gym died yesterday after going into cardiac arrest when he was repeatedly shocked with stun guns during a struggle with three cops, police said. Colonie Police Chief Steven Heider said Chad Brothers of Troy had gone to the Gold's Gym in this Albany suburb just before 6 a.m. and was described by witnesses as "annoying" and in a "highly escalated mood. " "He was mumbling things," Heider said.

ZURICH, Switzerland - The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra are bound to have ships-that-pass-in-the-night moments on their tours of European festivals, and the first was at the Zurich Airport on Sunday morning: The Chicagoans were emerging from the arrivals section of the airport while the Philadelphians were two levels up, going through security and passport control. The Chicagoans were in transit to Lucerne from Salzburg, Austria, and the Philadelphians were shipping out from Lucerne to Dublin, Ireland, using the same buses and Air Berlin chartered airplane.

Gloucester Township police charged one adult and three juveniles with resisting arrest after an altercation in Sicklerville Monday in which authorities said officers were assaulted. Residents and a family member identified the four arrested as brothers who live in Blackwood, and accused police of using excessive force. Police said three of those taken into custody were among a crowd of spectators who became aggressive as officers struggled to apprehend a juvenile who matched the description of a person suspected of threatening a store clerk.

VILLANOVA WAS the favorite. Not only to win the race, but perhaps even to challenge a 24-year-old world record set by another group of Wildcats at these same Penn Relays. But sometimes the storyline doesn't turn out to be as much about who takes the victory lap as how it unfolds. This was one of those instances. The Distance Medley Relay is the marquee event of the Carnival's opening day, even if it did start some 90 minutes late because of lightning delays. Yet as far as the Wildcats - who'd recently hoisted the hardware at the NCAA indoor championships in program-record time - were concerned, it was over before things ever had a chance to get interesting.