Etc...

We'll, uh, be back later

It was, said Jim Peterson, like watching a movie from the closing credits to the first scene. Or trying to drive backwards down a street in a truck with a trailer in tow. Peterson, you see, is a tuna fisherman , and he and his deckhand were 80 miles off Newport, Ore., one day last week when their boat lost its reverse gear. After some energetic tinkering, that was corrected, but then forward gear conked out. Since they were a full day from home, and since waiting for a tow would take at least 12 hours, they decided to head to the nearest port for repairs ... with their wake rolling out from underneath the bow instead of the stern. The trip, at about 3.5 knots per hour, took - well, let's just say - a long time. "I've talked to some old-timers," Peterson told the Eugene Register-Guard newspaper. "Nobody's ever heard of doing that before."

In his 16 years in the National Basketball Association, Charles Barkley never played on a championship team. Yet, the editors of Sports Illustrated magazine recently selected him No. 1 among the top 25 sports characters of the past quarter-century. The list, compiled for CNN, identifies athletes in the limelight not only for their playing abilities but also for their larger-than-life personas. Barkley (aka, The Round Mound of Rebound) was outspoken during his playing career and remains so today as an analyst on pro basketball telecasts. The women joining this headline-making group are tennis stars Serena Williams (No. 12) and Anna Kournikova (No. 19), and skier Picabo Street (No. 25). The top 10 sports characters in the SI/CNN rankings:
1. Charles Barkley
2. John McEnroe
3. Magic Johnson
4. Dennis Rodman
5. George Foreman
6. John Daly
7. Lance Armstrong
8. Bo Jackson
9. Pete Rose
10. Andre Agassi