Skeleton

After only 4 days on the job, Wally Backman was fired yesterday as manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks because of two arrests and financial problems he kept from the team. The Diamondbacks replaced Backman with former Seattle Mariners manager Bob Melvin, an Arizona bench coach when the team won the 2001 World Series. Before hiring Backman, the Diamondbacks didn't do any criminal or financial checks and were unaware of his problems until they were reported Tuesday in the New York Times.

A miniature, female relative of modern humans has been discovered, shaking up science's view of how we evolved on Earth. Scientists, who unearthed her after 18,000 years, nicknamed her "Hobbit," after the short characters who starred in Lord of the Rings. She stood three feet tall with a brain the size of a grapefruit. Yet she was smart enough to use tools, boats and probably language, and likely hunted pygmy elephants. She's being called a strange new species of human. Scientists found Hobbit and six other skeletons of this lost species on Flores, a remote Indonesian island, according to a study to be published today in the scientific journal Nature.

Bones, a skull, a pair of coveralls. It might not sound like much to go on. But if you're a forensic specialist - a person who uses the body's own clues to determine the who, when and how of a mysterious death - it can be plenty. As the city medical examiner, detectives and forensic experts scrutinize a skeleton discovered Thursday at the bottom of a trash-packed elevator shaft in a vacant Center City building, they will look at bones, teeth and clothing labels to try to put a name to the remains.

Kevin O'Neill warned his Toronto Raptors yesterday that they were about to enter the "NBA trap. " Hey, the coach probably knew that the 76ers are at their most dangerous when they are playing with only nine guys. The Sixers were only happy to spring the trap. Minus three starters, including top scorer Allen Iverson, they got big contributions from their veterans last night and defeated the Raptors, 81-75, in front of a sellout crowd of 19,800 at the Air Canada Centre. In addition to Iverson, the all-star guard who stayed home with a bruised right knee, snapping his consecutive-game streak at 110, the Sixers were without forward Glenn Robinson (sprained left ankle)

Dozens of skeletons are strewn helter-skelter. Skulls are cracked where bullets passed through. Jaws remain open as if still screaming. A glance at the photos makes it easy to understand why, nearly three decades later, Argentina's "dirty war" still inflames passions. More than 120 skeletons were found in the mass grave in the San Vicente cemetery near the industrial town of Cordoba. The site is said to be the largest such grave uncovered to date in Argentina, where military rulers are thought to have killed 10,000 to 30,000 leftists, real or perceived, from 1976 to 1983 in a "dirty war" against what they said were communist sympathizers trying to take over the country.

More than half of the concrete bowl has been poured, more than a quarter of the steel skeleton has been erected. Work is progressing steadily, moving counterclockwise from left field toward home plate and then back around to right. In 429 days, the Phillies' new 43,000-seat ballpark will open for business at 11th Street and Pattison Avenue in South Philadelphia. Yesterday, the Phillies gave press tours of the ballpark preview center, located in a former cheese warehouse a few hundred feet east of the construction site.

Lafayette Inn & Brewery in Lafayette Hill is not your typical microbrewery. For one thing, skeleton bones can be seen through a glass partition in the bar-room floor. The usual gleaming brass, exposed brick walls and requisite hanging plants are absent here. The moment you walk into the Lafayette Inn, you enter a low-ceilinged first room and immediately realize there is nothing fake about the tavern atmosphere. If you like being in an authentic tavern that has served the public since the 18th century, this is the place for you. The building was originally known as the Three Tuns tavern, and part of it dates to 1732.

Tristan Gale and Lea Ann Parsley are teammates on the U.S. women's skeleton team. They aren't sisters, but they might as well be. Gale is 21. She describes herself as "spunky. " She likes to draw out words like "soooo" and "everrrr. " Yesterday, before the first-ever Olympic competition in women's skeleton, she drew "USA" on her left cheek in sparkles. "She does everything in sparkles," Parsley said, sounding like the exasperated older sister. Gale also drives her sled at speeds approaching 78 m.p.h.

After Jim Shea Jr. completed the most exhilarating skeleton ride of his life, and after fellow contestants from many nations finished mobbing him, he took off his helmet and reached inside. It took Shea a while to locate what he was looking for. But he finally found it, the source of his inspiration for the race. It was a Mass card commemorating the tragic death of his grandfather, Jack Shea, the first of his family's three generations of U.S. Olympians. Jim Shea slid through heavy, wet snowflakes at the Utah Olympic Park and rode the wave of a delirious crowd to win the gold medal in the men's skeleton, the first competition of this sport in the Winter Games in 54 years.

The way Lincoln DeWitt had it figured, he would celebrate his graduation from the University of Pennsylvania by moving to Utah and becoming a ski bum for one winter season. After four years in Philadelphia, which yielded a degree in economics and the athletic memories of running middle distances for the Quakers' track team, the Syracuse, N.Y., native was ready for something less taxing. That was 1990, and DeWitt is still in Utah. He has found steady work as a computer programmer - "a nerd," he likes to call himself - but along the way, he fell into something bigger and more consuming than he ever could have imagined.