Rehab

Curt Schilling finally faced reporters yesterday - and an uncertain future. If the shoulder rehabilitation he reluctantly agreed to fails, he knows his brilliant career could be over. The one-time Red Sox ace also denied that he was hurt when he signed an $8 million contract last November. Speaking publicly for the first time about his preference for surgery, Boston's 41-year-old righthander said he had to follow the team's insistence on rehab because he is under contract.

For Ramon Rodriguez, 82, it means a new house where he doesn't have to walk up too many stairs. For Al Taylor, a carpenter, it means employment at a time when a job is hard to come by. And for the Philadelphia Housing Authority, it marks the beginning of a new way of renovating its abundant vacant housing. During a ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday in Spring Garden, Mayor Rendell and PHA Special Master Elton Jolly proudly showed off four rehabilitated apartment buildings on Mount Vernon Street near 16th.

Exactly a week after undergoing surgery to repair a torn labrum in his hip, goaltender Michael Leighton was back at the Flyers' Skate Zone in Voorhees, N.J., to begin a lengthy rehab process. Luckily for Leighton, the damage in his hip was not as extensive as doctors originally feared. "[The] doctor said he was happy with the way things went," Leighton said yesterday. "I'll be on crutches for 4 weeks instead of 8 weeks, so that's very positive. It's a little stiff, so I want to stretch it out as much as I can. " Leighton said he started his rehab the day after his surgery.

LAKEWOOD, N.J. - Ryan Howard returned to the little jewel of a ballpark where it all began for him as a professional baseball player eight years ago. The Phillies' single-A affiliate, Lakewood, welcomed the Big Piece, as Phillies manager Charlie Manuel calls the slugger, as a conquering hero Friday and made him the first BlueClaw in the 10-year history of the club whose number was retired. But Howard's teammates and the Phillies' brass were more concerned about how Howard's left ankle held up during the first game of his minor-league rehabilitation assignment at FirstEnergy Park.

Help can sometimes be found in the unlikeliest of places. Two days ago, Phillies reliever Jeff Brantley, he of numerous arm and shoulder miseries, walked into a rehabilitation center in West Chester, Pa., expecting only to stretch and exercise. The next thing he knew, voila, he was speeding down the road toward solving his problems and, he believes, returning in a hurry to the bullpen. Brantley has been on the disabled list since March 25 with a strained muscle in his right shoulder.

Philadelphia Housing Authority Executive Director Gregory A. Kern thought last night's meeting with residents of the Southwark public housing project would be a "good opportunity" to calm the fears of the complex's residents. The residents will be temporarily relocated so a three-year, $27.4 million rehab of the South Philadelphia project can begin. But most of the 200 residents who gathered in the Southwark Community Center, 4th Street and Washington Avenue, apparently left the meeting just as confused as they were when they came.

ET TU, Diana? Supreme diva Diana Ross has gone the way of Ben Affleck, Paula Poundstone and Robert Downey Jr., entering the tony drug and alcohol rehab center Promises, her mouthpiece said yesterday. It's Ross' intent "to clear up some personal issues," her rep Paul Bloch said, before she goes on tour. "She wants to be in great shape because she is someone who feels a sense of responsibility to her family and her fans," Bloch said. Ross, 58, was supposed to begin the concert tour June 26 in Germany, but Tattle suspects that date will be scratched.

"The Waterdance," based on the autobiographical experiences of screenwriter Neal Jimenez (writer/co-director), is an unusual treatment of the familiar hospital-rehab drama. It focuses on the trials of three permanently paralyzed men as they adjust to their condition. Joel (Eric Stoltz), the screenwriter, has the idea that he will continue the affair he's having with a beautiful young married woman, even though he cannot satisfy her sexually. Ray (Wesley Snipes), an unfaithful, hard-drinking unemployed man believes his accident will suddenly make him a good husband to his long-suffering wife and a good father to his young daughter.

L INDSAY LOHAN has been released from jail. The actress was freed yesterday at 1:35 a.m. (California time) after serving 14 days of a 90-day sentence for violating her probation in a 2007 drug case, a sheriff's spokesman said. Upon release to a waiting vehicle, Lindsay was whisked by police to rehab at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Lindsay did not walk out the jail's front entryway a la Paris Hilton in 2007. Paris smiled and high-fived deputies who held back the paparazzi before meeting her parents at a waiting sport utility vehicle.

WHILE WORD is filtering through the TMZ.com grapevine about Paris Hilton's life behind bars - it's cold, uncomfortable, the blankets are threadbare, the beds are hard and the food is lousy - the Star is reporting on Lindsay Lohan's first few days in rehab. The paper says that when Lindsay arrived on May 28, she was in such bad shape that the Promises staff prepared for the worst. "She looked dead," says a Star source. "She looked like a stray dog the pound had just taken in. " Insiders allegedly tell the Star that Lindsay's first four days were spent in detox, ridding her body of alcohol, cocaine, Percocet, Vicodin and other meds.