Blunder

As third down melts into fourth down, even the best of National Football League sidelines can best be described as organized mayhem. Players rush off. Players rush on. It isn't that hard, really. But the emotions of the game sometimes take over. Which brings us to Jeff Sydner. Early in the second half, quarterback Randall Cunningham overthrew Sydner on a third-and-11 play. It isn't hard to overthrow Sydner, who's only 5-6, but this one was way high. Still, Sydner was upset.

There they go again, those muscle-bound, muscle-brained Russians, arresting an American journalist and undermining their own interests. "Clumsy stupidity," writes James Reston. The Soviets "misjudged badly," says Newsweek. "They miscalculated," offered Nicholas Daniloff's boss, U.S. News & World Report editor Mortimer Zuckerman. They "didn't anticipate the enormous public outcry. " So there you have it. It seems that for the sake of a two-bit Russian spy, the great Gorbo, PR master, has stupidly compromised his worldwide good-guy campaign.

EUGENE, Ore. - Tyson Gay got quite a fright in his first race yesterday. He set a record in his second. Gay broke Maurice Greene's American mark in the 100 meters by running 9.77 seconds in his quarterfinal at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials. "It tells me I'm in pretty good shape," Gay said. "We've got two more rounds left. " The U.S. contingent for the women's 100 was determined yesterday, and the biggest surprises might have been who did not make the team: Allyson Felix, whose specialty is the 200 but announced her intention to compete in four events in China, and Marshevet Hooker, who had the fastest time in each of the previous three rounds.

Who says you can't have it all? When Matt Blundin was about to graduate from Ridley High School in 1987, the 6-7 football and basketball standout had some decisions to make. He wanted to go to Notre Dame in the worst way to play football. But coach Lou Holtz was after a quarterback who could run the veer, an offense that didn't suit Blundin's game. Blundin could have chosen Miami, which had produced Jim Kelly, Bernie Kosar and Vinny Testaverde. He eventually gave his verbal commitment to sign a national letter of intent with Penn State to become Joe Paterno's next classic dropback passer.

The Eagles ostensibly acknowledged another blunder in the free-agent market yesterday when head coach Rich Kotite said that Tim Harris probably would not play again this season. Asked yesterday if he expected the defensive lineman to return, Kotite said: "From what I understand medically, no, I don't. " Then he added: "There's a slim chance. Slim chance. " Which most observers interpreted to mean "no chance. " In April, when the former 49er signed a three-year, $4.5 million contract with the Eagles, the pass-rushing Harris was supposed to make Reggie White a dim memory But Harris, 29, who had 17 sacks for the 49ers in 1992, was hardly fit for duty when he arrived on the East Coast.

I call for the resignation of Philadelphia City Council President Joseph E. Coleman. His "political" decision to appoint Harry Jannotti as executive director of the city's Veterans Advisory Commission was the earliest political blunder of 1986. I feel the commission should be composed of veterans of the Vietnam War, Korean War, World War II and World War I. Francis R. Alba Philadelphia.

WHEN the Phils got Cliff Lee from the Indians, he picked up the whole staff and the team looked like a juggernaut for two weeks. Then Charlie went into his loyalty act, which kills all good managers. He was determined to keep sending Brad Lidge to the mound to get him ready for the postseason. Everyone in baseball except Charlie knew this wasn't the same Lidge. Every time a starter pitched a game good enough to win, Lidge came in and lost it. That didn't deter Charlie. The starters began to lose faith in the closers, and their game suffered.

Vince Fumo says Transport Workers Union local president Steve Brookens is motivated by the desire to be re-elected. No kidding - imagine a politician raising such a possibility! Whatever Brookens' motivation, he did himself and his union no favor by driving the Democratic National Convention site committee out of town. Or by storming out of negotiations - regardless of the apparent provocations of SEPTA management or of state Sen. Fumo, who was supposed to mediate the conflict and seems to have made matters worse.

Immigration blunder Read Senate Bill 1348, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, if you have a couple of weeks off. Or go to http://go.philly.com/reformact and read just the sections that interest you. As a naturalized citizen I have a special interest in immigration. The president wants this bill passed. "Do what is right for America and pass this bill," he has said. I'm sure he was not referring to Section 645 of this bill, titled "Addressing poverty in Mexico.

KISSIMMEE, Fla. - Charlie Manuel's gait took him past the first row of lockers in the cramped visitors clubhouse at Osceola County Stadium, and there was Domonic Brown, wearing only his white Under Armour tights. Manuel nodded his head, tapped Brown on the right arm and kept moving. It would take a conversation of great length for Manuel to explain his frustration that Brown, 24, has yet to put it all together. Maybe it's best on days like Tuesday to let silence carry. There, right in front of Manuel, is a talent so dynamic yet utterly maddening.

VILLANOVA'S basketball team - which has no seniors and five freshmen - is 4-2, after losing two of three in the 76 Classic in Anaheim, Calif. The losses were to Saint Louis (6-0) by 12 points in the second round on Friday and by one to Santa Clara (4-2) in Sunday's third-place game. But it was the way they went down against Steve Nash's alma mater that caused some head-shaking. The Wildcats, after trailing by eight three times in the first half, went ahead by nine with 3 1/2 minutes left.

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry tried Thursday to convince the country he was in on the joke after his disastrous debate performance, while even his supporters worried aloud about the damage to his hobbling campaign. Perry didn't try to sugarcoat the fallout from his minute-long stammer that crystallized concerns that he is not up for the job. Instead, he spent the day on a media blitz trying to laugh about the Wednesday evening debate at which he struggled embarrassingly to remember one of the three federal departments he wants to abolish, ending with a grinning, "Oops.

Like his players, Cleveland Browns defensive coordinator Dick Jauron was caught unaware Sunday when the Cincinnati Bengals rushed to the line and quickly snapped the ball for a 41-yard touchdown pass. At the time, Jauron was concentrating on his play sheet. "I have to pick it up," Jauron said Thursday. "I have to see it, and I didn't see it. I missed it. " During the fourth quarter, Bengals quarterback Bruce Gradkowski alertly hurried his team to the line, took the snap, and lofted a touchdown pass to rookie A.J. Green , a game-changing play in Cincinnati's 27-17 win. Jauron didn't offer any excuses for the blunder, accepted blame, and made changes.

At the start of today's slate of games, the average National League team had allowed 47 unearned runs over the course of the season. The Phillies, on the other hand, had allowed just 19. That number changed significantly today, when the Mets took advantage of a muffed double play ball in the first inning, scoring four unearned runs en route to a 7-4 victory at Citizens Bank Park. The pivotal play came in the first inning, when Michael Martinez bobbled a ground ball by Ruben Tejeda, then was unable to make the throw to second in time for the force out. After a David Wright single loaded the bases, the Mets proceeded to score four runs: one on a groundout by Lucas Duda, and three more on a home run by Nick Evans.

Lawmakers gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 59 rounds of applause as he addressed a joint meeting of Congress this week. But the whisper I heard while watching the speech from the House gallery was more revealing. It came as Netanyahu repeated his rejection of the notion, floated by President Obama last week, that peace talks with Palestinians should be based on Israel's pre-1967 borders. "Israel will not return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967," Netanyahu thundered.

YOU MENTION the words "serial killer" and the names of the damned flash before your eyes like glimpses of old nightmares. Dahmer. Bundy. BTK. Heidnik. Graham. Gacy. The list goes on. What they have in common - aside from an appalling ability to exterminate human beings with relative ease - is a tendency to eventually screw up and make sloppy mistakes that help put them behind bars forever. That common flaw might be what helps Philadelphia police ultimately catch the Kensington Strangler - the maniac who has been linked through DNA evidence to the slayings of three women in the last month.

Philip Kousoubris, a Boston neuroradiologist who did his residency training at Bryn Mawr Hospital from 1993 to 1997, heard through the grapevine recently that doctors who trained during that era and until 2005 were getting tax refunds. The payments were settlements of a long-running dispute between medical-residency programs and the IRS over whether residents were students or employees. At issue was withholding for FICA, taxes used for Social Security and Medicare. Compared with what full-fledged doctors make, the settlements do not amount to much.

HARRISBURG - Only a few years ago, it seemed unthinkable that Pennsylvania's capital city could be teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. A renaissance of restaurants and shops was gently transforming its downtown, and after years of neglect, Harrisburg had become a surprising and unexpected destination in central Pennsylvania. Now that newfound image has faded like the morning mists on the Susquehanna River. Harrisburg is reaping the fruits of a string of bad spending decisions and a catfight among the city's political leaders - a mix that with each passing day seems more likely to land the city in the definition of municipal embarrassment: bankruptcy court.

Jrue Holiday treats words as if they're endangered. The 76ers rookie point guard says little, punctuating his abrupt sentences with a shrug as if this entire thing - the game of basketball - isn't as complicated as the questions might imply. This season, Holiday's play has been at times mature and promising, at others youthful and overmatched. But during yesterday's 114-101 victory over the Toronto Raptors, which snapped a five-game losing streak for the Sixers, Holiday looked much more the former than the latter.