Merriman will have season-ending surgery on knee
Star outside linebacker Shawne Merriman pulled the plug on his 2008 season on Tuesday when he told the San Diego Chargers he’ll have surgery on the two torn ligaments in his left knee.
The loss of Merriman, whose hard hits earned him the nickname “Lights Out,” is a big one for a team that has Super Bowl expectations.
Merriman’s decision came two days after he barely resembled the player who had an NFL-high 391/2 sacks in the past three seasons and played in three straight Pro Bowls.
“Shawne informed me he did not feel right and thought it best to shut it down,” Chargers general manager A.J. Smith said. “The road to winning the AFC West just got more difficult, but not impossible. Nothing is impossible. Shawne is a great player and an inspirational leader. He will be missed. We wish him a successful surgery and a speedy recovery.”
Merriman had only two tackles in a 26-24 loss to Carolina at home on Sunday.
False alarm: Jeff Fisher said the Tennessee Titans didn’t have the luxury of waiting to be sure about the safety of quarterback Vince Young before calling police for help in finding him.
That led to four hours’ of uncertainty Monday night before Young contacted the Titans and met with Fisher, a psychologist and police crisis negotiators at the team’s headquarters before driving himself home. Combined with Young’s reaction to being heavily booed in Sunday’s opener, his mental state has been questioned heavily the past two days.
Young has a sprained medial collateral ligament in his left knee, and will not play Sunday.
Young was located at a friend’s home where he was watching football and eating chicken wings.
Collier targeted: The lead detective in the shooting of Jacksonville Jaguars tackle Richard Collier said he believes the player was targeted.
Sheriff’s detective Dennis Sullivan said Collier remains in critical but stable condition at a Jacksonville hospital, with multiple gunshot wounds. He was shot in his car on Sept. 2.
Mauk denied: Former Cincinnati quarterback Ben Mauk, who sued the NCAA after being denied a sixth season of eligibility, lost another appeal when a judge in his hometown ruled against him.
Mauk was turned down by the NCAA five times before he asked the court in Kenton, Ohio, for help.
Auto racing
McLaren appeals penalty that cost Hamilton win
McLaren appealed the time penalty that cost Lewis Hamilton a win at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Race stewards penalized Hamilton 25 seconds for cutting across a chicane to overtake then-leader Kimi Raikkonen during the closing stages of Sunday’s race. Hamilton re-emerged onto the track and allowed the Ferrari driver back into the lead before overtaking for good.
“From the pit wall, we then asked race control to confirm that they were comfortable that Lewis had allowed Kimi to re-pass, and they confirmed twice that they believed that the position had been given back in a manner that was ‘OK,’ ” McLaren chief executive Martin Whitmarsh said.
The appeal will be heard by FIA’s International Court of Appeal before the Singapore GP on Sept. 28.
Hamilton was demoted to third place and Felipe Massa of Ferrari was upgraded to first. Instead of an eight-point edge, Hamilton still retains the lead with a 76-74 margin with 50 more points at stake in the remaining five races.
Track and field
Harper, Robles finish first in women’s, men’s hurdles
American Dawn Harper backed up her unexpected 100-meter hurdles gold medal at the Olympics by winning at the Zagreb (Croatia) Grand Prix against four other Beijing finalists.
In another strong showing, Cuba’s Dayron Robles won the men’s 110 hurdles in Zagreb for the third time in a row.
Harper won in 12.65 seconds, beating Jamaican Delloreen Ennis-London by 0.05 seconds. Priscilla Lopes-Schliep of Canada, who took bronze at the games, was third in 12.86, and the silver medalist Sally McLellan of Australia was fourth.
Robles, the Olympic champ and world record-holder, finished in 13.20 seconds, 0.46 faster than Richard Phillips of Jamaica. Petr Swoboda of the Czech Republic was third.
Miscellany
Monarchs edge Storm
Nicole Powell scored 20 points to help the Sacramento Monarchs clinch the final playoff berth in the Western Conference with a 77-74 victory over the Seattle Storm in Sacramento, Calif.
Katie Gearlds scored 17 points to lead Seattle. The Storm fell out of a first-place tie with San Antonio.
Chestnut advances: Jimmy Chestnut beat Matthew Williams 5 and 3 to reach the quarterfinals of the U. S. Mid-Amateur Championship in River Hills, Wis.
Two rounds of match play at the Milwaukee Country Club trimmed the field to eight going into today’s quarterfinal and semifinal matches.
Sean Knapp, Todd Mitchell, Steven Wilson, Jeffrey Wilson, Michael Stamberger, Michael McCoy, and Chris Lange also advanced.
Ratings drop: Television ratings were down for the U.S. Open tennis men’s final after rain forced the match to move from Sunday to Monday.
Roger Federer’s straight-set win over Andy Murray, which started at 2 p.m. PDT on CBS, drew a 1.9 national rating and a 4 share, the network said.
That’s down 49 percent from last year’s 3.7/7, when Federer’s victory over Novak Djokovic, a more competitive match, was in the customary Sunday time slot.
The women’s final saw the opposite effect, with the rain shifting it from Saturday to Sunday, when more people tend to watch TV. Serena Williams’ win over Jelena Jankovic earned a 3.3 national rating and 6 share, up 57 percent from the 2.1/4 when Justine Henin beat Svetlana Kuznetsova in 2007.