League

CHRIS POLK will tell you now that he had zero expectations heading into last month's NFL draft. "My expectation was just to get drafted," he said after a morning practice at the Eagles' 3-day rookie camp at NovaCare. That, of course, isn't quite true. It's one of those things players say after they've taken the kind of disappointing, look-out-below draft fall Polk took 2 weeks ago. The 5-11, 220-pound running back from the University of Washington, who is just one of seven players in Pac-12 history to rush for 4,000 yards, had hoped to be selected in the third — maybe even the second — round of the draft.

The National Lacrosse League yesterday named Wings forward Athan Iannucci as the league's most valuable player. In his second season, Iannucci led the league in goals with an NLL-record 71 and points with 100. He also tied for the league lead in game-winning goals (five) with Sean Pollock of the Minnesota Swarm. Iannucci's 71 goals surpassed the record of 61 set by Minnesota's Gary Gait in 2003.

The National Basketball Association Players Association this morning filed a class action anti-trust suit in federal court in Newark, N.J., against the league and its 23 member teams. The suit asks the court to declare the NBA's draft, salary cap and right of first refusal invalid, and asks for damages to be paid to any players hurt by those mechanisms. "We're saying the anti-trust laws are being violated and that it is time to end those restrictions," said Larry Fleisher, general counsel to the Players Association.

Women's Professional Soccer announced Monday that it has suspended the 2012 season due to "legal issues" and an "ongoing dispute" with a former owner. WPS was formed in 2009 following the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. The Independence, owned by David Halstead and coached by Paul Riley, last season lost in the WPS championship game for the second straight year. "This is what responsible business enterprises do, and it's what the WPS and Philadelphia Independence are going to do," Halstead said in a statement.

With about 10 games remaining in the season, Cryhten Langhorne's name began to appear more and more frequently in Willingboro boys' basketball box scores. It seems that the junior had begun to impress Paul Collins with more than his superior leaping ability. Langhorne had tacked on a mid-range jump shot, which meant additional opportunities to score. If summer league play is any indication, Langhorne just might be primed to emerge as a bona fide scorer. The 6-foot-2 senior leads the Chimeras in the Cherry Hill Recreation league with a 25 points-per-game average.

Parity should be the name of the game in the race for the Colonial Conference field hockey championship this season. With such teams as Collingswood, Gateway, Haddonfield and Haddon Heights boasting experienced lineups, the league race figures to be tight all the way. And those teams will not be able to rest easy, because Audubon, Haddon Township and Woodbury seem capable of pulling surprises. Collingswood, which claimed the league title with a 17-1 record and was 19-2 overall last season, has nine returning letter-winners under coach Sandra Ritter.

Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants and Stars Umpiring in the Negro Leagues & Beyond By Bob Motley with Byron Motley Sports Publishing LLC. 212 pp. $16.95 I would love to sit down for an hour or so with Bob Motley and jaw about our memories of old-time baseball. He spent much of his life umpiring in the Negro Leagues, and relates his experiences there to his son, author Byron Motley. I lived across the street from Philadelphia's Shibe Park, and knew most major league players before I started school.

Now that the NFL has uncovered a big-money bounty program for players in New Orleans, it likely will zero in on other teams Gregg Williams worked for. That means the Titans, Redskins, Jaguars, and Bills probably should all expect to hear from the league soon. Williams has admitted and apologized for running a bounty pool of up to $50,000 over the last three seasons that rewarded players with thousand-dollar payoffs for knocking targeted opponents out of games while he was the Saints' defensive coordinator.

Success was sweet for the Mets of the Fairmount Sports Association Little League, who took the league championship Tuesday night. The Mets and the Yankees were tied in the best-of-3 series going into the championship game. The 12-team league is made up of children ages 7 to 9. After the win, the victors launched a messy celebration.

Frustrate and dominate. That describes what Villa Joseph Marie has done to soccer opponents in the Athletic Association of Catholic Academies this season. Whether it was the cat-quick moves of striker Megan Verdeur, the acrobatic saves by goalkeeper Kerriann Kane, or the pesky play by midfielder/defender Alysha Mallon, the Jems left no doubt about their league superiority. Last night was different. But as dominant teams do, they still found a way to win. Steph Lawall's penalty kick in the 78th minute gave Villa Joseph Marie a 2-1 victory over St. Basil Academy in the league championship match at La Salle University.

The players union claimed Wednesday that the NFL imposed a secret salary cap during the uncapped 2010 season that cost the players at least $1 billion. The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, which oversees NFL labor matters. But the league says the union has no grounds for the action and is prohibited from filing it by the collective bargaining agreement. The complaint claims a "conspiracy" to set a $123 million salary cap for the 2010 season, when owners did not have the authority to do so. The Cowboys and Redskins have had their future salary caps lowered for overspending in 2010, Dallas by $10 million over two seasons, Washington by a whopping $36 million.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Steve Addazio called the three proposals on divisional alignment presented to the Big East football coaches and athletic directors at the conference's spring meetings a win-win-win situation for Temple. One proposal would split the league into East and West divisions beginning in 2013. Another called for North and South divisions. And the third would have a non-geographic alignment, splitting the West Coast schools, the Texas schools, and the Florida schools.

At the owners meeting in Atlanta on Tuesday, commissioner Roger Goodell briefly addressed the defamation lawsuit filed against him by New Orleans' Jonathan Vilma after he suspended the Saints linebacker for the 2012 season. Goodell said that he has "not spent a lot of time" on the lawsuit, in which Vilma contends the commissioner made false statements that tarnished Vilma's reputation and hindered his ability to earn a living playing football. "I've been around this league for 30 years, and you are going to make decisions that will not be unanimous - it just doesn't happen, particularly in a game where there is a lot of emotion, a lot of passion," Goodell said.

FOR A WHILE, it looked to be rather fitting that Jake Kurtz would be playing the violin Wednesday night during Girard Academic Music Program's spring concert. Then good things began happening and . . . Who knows? Maybe he mixed in some trumpet. At loud volume. Accompanied by happy dancers. Kurtz is 5-9, 160-pound sophomore righthander and he was the last pitcher standing in a wild Public League baseball semifinal at Richie Ashburn Field in South Philly's FDR Park. Did he dazzle?

AH, THERE'S nothing quite as exciting as witnessing a championship game. Wait. Yes, there is. It's called playing in one. In fact, that's even better. Friday, Hector Cerda will try to help Frankford High win a second consecutive Public League baseball title in a 3 o'clock tilt, to be played at Richie Ashburn Field in South Philly's FDR Park, against Girard Academic Music Program. And he'll especially appreciate the moment because, just a few days ago, he was not an active member of the program.

SOME GUYS are way too liberal with their use of the word neighbor. Sorry, a half-mile away doesn't qualify. And then there's Ronnie Scull. When he mentions that Frank Saviski, a baseball teammate at Monsignor Bonner High, is a neighbor, he's as serious as a 90-mph fastball under the chin. "He lives right across the street from me," Scull said. "I met him when I was 5 years old. I walked out of my house. He walked out of his. We sat down by the sewer and had a talk, and we've been best friends ever since.

WHETHER he's involved in a bang-bang play at first base, or if the home plate umpire is squeezing his strike zone, don't expect Tyler Criniti to put up too much of an argument. He may grumble under his breath and kick at the dirt, but Criniti, a senior at Girard Academic Music Program, isn't going to whine to the men in blue. They say you don't know a man until you've walked a mile in his cleats. Criniti started umpiring youth baseball games last month and has newfound respect for the profession.

So where do the Flyers - after a very good regular season that morphed into a very weird playoff showing - go from here? Well, in a best-case scenario, they would become one of the NHL's best teams if they somehow signed New Jersey winger Zach Parise and Nashville defenseman Ryan Suter, a pair of prospective free agents. Will they have the cap space for both? Doubtful. And even if they were to make a deal to free cap space, the odds of them beating out a long list of suitors for both players would not be favorable.

Going into this uncertain season, Freddy Galvis was one of the Phillies' biggest question marks. With a quarter of the regular season in the books, Galvis has raised some questions of his own with his performance. Questions such as: If the Phillies had known they would get this kind of production from Galvis, would they have committed to that new contract for Jimmy Rollins? And: Why didn't they expect Galvis to be ready for the big leagues? And what might that say about the way the Phillies evaluate their own minor-league prospects (ahem, Domonic Brown)

Didier Drogba scored the decisive penalty in a shootout as Chelsea became Europe's club champion for the first time, beating Bayern Munich in the German club's home stadium to win the Champions League final after a 1-1 draw on Saturday. The often-theatrical Drogba, 34, playing possibly his last game for the English Premier League club as his contract expires next month, was at the heart of the show. Drogba sent goalkeeper Manuel Neuer the wrong way to clinch the 4-3 shootout win at Allianz Arena after Bayern's Bastian Schweinsteiger missed the previous penalty.