Offseason

This is not the first time Roy Oswalt has been part of a star-studded starting rotation. For three years - 2004 to 2006 - he was part of a Houston Astros trio that included Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte. To this day, those two still influence Oswalt's pitching preparation. "Roger and Andy actually had a lot to do with what my workouts are like now," Oswalt said "They had a Navy Seal workout that they did, and that's what I try to do in the offseason to get in shape. " It makes sense that Oswalt would follow the intense workouts he started while teammates with Clemens and Pettitte.

Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings have begun their offseason sooner than they hoped. The question now is whether Favre will be around when next season starts. Players gathered at the practice facility yesterday for the final team meeting in the aftermath of their devastating NFC Championship Game loss at New Orleans the night before. Favre, who has 1 year left on a 2-year contract, was not in the locker room yesterday when it was open to reporters. He told ESPN.

The in-house video featuring racist jokes and topless blondes that embarrassed the San Francisco 49ers last week wasn't the first offensive video from the team's disgraced public-relations director. The team has acknowledged that a video made in 2003 by Kirk Reynolds contained "objectionable content showing bikini-clad women. " The tapes were meant to prepare players for dealing with the media. A copy of the video, obtained by TV station KRON, shows Reynolds in a strip club, a restroom stall, and in the shower.

Charlie Garner was at Veterans Stadium every day, it seemed, during the offseason. The Eagles' smallish, backup running back lifted weights. He used the cardiovascular machines. He got into the best shape of his professional career. Coach Ray Rhodes gushed about Garner's offseason energy. He lauded the 25-year-old's determination to shake off the label he'd earned as a fragile player. He noted the 5 pounds of muscle Garner gained. Yesterday, the Eagles rewarded Garner with a one-year contract, the terms of which were not disclosed.

Against the Flyers, Dominik Hasek played like last season's version, letting just one puck past him, that one deflecting off his own defenseman. Three or four times at least, Flyers forwards thought they were flicking rebounds into an open net last night, the goalie down, when suddenly, Hasek or some relevant part of him - an arm, a leg, the toe of a skate - filled the space where the puck was headed. But the NHL's reigning Most Valuable Player knows a strong game or two won't heal everything that has happened to the Buffalo Sabres between their 92-point season last year, which netted them first place in the Northeast Division, and the 20 points they've accumulated in 25 games this season, after last night's 1-1 tie with the Flyers.

Bill Parcells says he's happy to have Terrell Owens with the Dallas Cowboys. It just took him 48 days to say so. "I say, 'I support it,' and that's the way we go," Parcells said yesterday. "I don't view it as a gamble. It's in my best interest that he's successful. And it's in his best interest that he's successful . . . "I'm not approaching this with the idea it's going to be adversarial or I'm going to be mandating every little thing this player does. " Parcells keeps a low profile in the offseason, but he took it to an extreme this year, especially with all the scrutiny surrounding the signing of Owens, the former Eagles receiver, and questions about whether owner Jerry Jones made the move with Parcells' consent.

Buddy Ryan says any attempt by the NFL to regulate offseason training is an accommodation to those more concerned with tee times than football. "It penalizes the coaches who want to work and justifies those other guys playing golf all offseason," the Arizona coach said yesterday after practice for the Cardinals' opener Sunday at Washington. "I guess I'll take up playing golf, like most of the other coaches in the league. " NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue has said he is considering new ground rules on offseason work so all teams have the same set of guidelines.

Even on a team whose agenda is littered with maybes and what-ifs going into the offseason, Tyler Green stands out as a particularly vexing question mark for the Phillies. He's a former No. 1 draft choice who made the All-Star team as a rookie in 1995. He has also won a total of just 11 big-league games in the nearly 3 1/2 years since. Sometimes he's dominant. Other times he might as well be pitching on roller skates. Often, those contrasts are displayed from inning to inning in the same game.

Hot PHILLIES: Shane Victorino. The ultimate red-light player on a team filled with red-light players, Victorino has a .299 average in 26 career postseason games. He has an on-base percentage of .370 over that time with six home runs. Of those home runs, the biggest was a grand slam in last year's NLDS against CC Sabathia. YANKEES: Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez has shown how to win a pennant, hitting .438 in nine postseason games. Even more impressive is his OBP of .548. No one knows his importance better than the Phillies.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Maggie Lucas' spectacular freshman season at Penn State didn't have the picture-perfect ending the 5-foot-10 guard from Narberth wanted. In March, when the Lady Lions' season ended with a second-round NCAA tournament exit at the hands of DePaul - in a game they led by as many as 14 - Lucas' line in the box score read 1 for 11 from the field. Needless to say, the team's leading scorer who set a Big Ten single-season record with 112 three-pointers (3.2 per game)