Dexter

Two top commanders in the Philadelphia Police Department have emerged as leading contenders to succeed Commissioner John F. Timoney, with his second-in-command, Deputy Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson, perceived to have the edge. Police officials said yesterday that Johnson, Timoney's No. 2 man and a 37-year veteran of the force, appeared to be the front-runner and was believed to be the commissioner's choice for a replacement. Mayor Street named him acting commissioner after the announcement of Timoney's resignation on Wednesday.

Philadelphia's Board of Education hired a high-ranking police official yesterday to oversee safety in the 210,000-student district. Dexter Green, 50, a former city high school teacher and a 29-year city police veteran, will remain attached to the Police Department but will be paid by the school district, which he will serve as chief safety executive. Green, selected from more than 100 applicants, is to be paid $107,000 a year in the new position, which was recommended last year by a consultant after a review of the district's safety operations.

Max Hansen has had a wide variety of experiences during his career as a caterer and restaurant chef, but until recently, he had never chopped vegetables while traveling at 65 miles per hour. "I was happy to survive the trip with all my digits intact. We were lucky that nobody got cut," said Hansen, chef-owner of Max & Me Catering in Holicong, Bucks County, after a whirlwind three-day assignment on the Bush-Cheney campaign train that hurtled through Midwestern battleground states on the weekend following the Republican Convention.

Dexter Green was a young police officer in 1980 when he first came face to face with legendary Chief Inspector George Fencl. Fencl, one of the most highly respected cops in Philadelphia history, was known for fair treatment of everyone. The brief meeting inspired Green to become a policeman who emulates Fencl. A fair guy. "I walk into the Roundhouse and I see George Fencl there waiting for the elevator, talking to someone else," said Green, now 49. "He spoke. " Maybe Fencl said "Good morning" to Green.

William Felder is a convicted felon. By his own account, he was a money launderer. He sold drugs, first to high-flying Wall Street customers, then to regular street buyers. He used drugs, too. He lived on the streets of Manhattan, sometimes in subway tunnels. That's Felder's past. He sees his future in different hues. Yesterday, under a chilly May rain, Felder, garbed in the citron-lined hood of a master's-degree recipient in social work, hooted and hollered and hugged the classmates around him. At 53, he was among the most ebullient of the University of Pennsylvania's 5,000 or so graduates gathered on the puddled Franklin Field Astroturf.

Weighed down with heavy hearts, Audubon's baseball players nevertheless soldiered on to another win in the NJSIAA Group 2 playoffs and now stand on the brink of a state championship. Playing on the same day as the funeral for Lori Hollinger, an Audubon junior who was killed in an automobile accident last Thursday, the Green Wave got a masterful effort from starting pitcher Jim Brown and just enough offense to edge Voorhees, 1-0, in eight innings in a Group 2 semifinal yesterday at Mercer County Community College.

Marlene Mejia was just back from playing in a mid-January tennis tournament in Costa Rica when she burst energetically into the Country Tennis and Racquet Club in Worcester, showing no sign of jet lag or the strain of keeping up with junior-class studies at Lansdale Catholic High. She hugged her coach, Bill Eastburn, smilingly chided him for not wearing Nike gear (the company is one of her sponsors), and preened a bit before some pictures of herself and other young tennis phenoms on the club's walls.

The expectations are the same here, as suffocating as a midday in July, but the players inside the starred helmets aren't all stars. In fact, as the Dallas Cowboys attempt to win the NFC East for the sixth straight time, there are 11 first-year players on the active roster. Not since 1984, when the Cowboys were two seasons from their last playoff win and seven years from their next one, has there been such an infusion of untested talent. The change was dictated by free-agent defections and retirements, and an awareness that the team was aging quickly.

Adults who look at what's served up in Good Burger will no doubt demand "Where's the beef?" But the kids will wolf it down. The road to Hollywood is cratered with bombs dropped by skit comedians trying to make it from satirical television to the big screen. Good Burger attempts something that's rarer - inflating a sketch to the length of a feature comedy. If the result is as predictable in content as a Big Mac, it yields passable entertainment whose humor is shrewdly and consistently pitched at the preteen target audience.

Just after Chris T. Jones plucked Rodney Peete's pass from above the baffled head of Greg Jeffries and landed in the end zone in the third quarter, he knelt and prayed. Then, he trotted to the stands behind the Eagles' bench and handed the ball to his brother, Dexter, who turned and ran back to his seat. Dexter then handed the ball to Bettye Jones, Chris's mother - a gesture than ended more than a year of patience. "This means so much to me," she said, moments after receiving the ball.