Sports Beat

Some events just sound fun—like, say, the Goldschlager Bar Olympics, in which good-looking women travel from town to town beating the locals at pool and darts. (Chugging the titular cinnamon schnapps liqueur is not an event, at least not officially.) The Goldschlager � Team's "captain" is Jenny McCarthy—the former Playboy centerfold and star of Scary Movie 3—but the real competitors are Jennifer Barretta (below, left), a professional pool player who took up the sport four years ago because, she says, "I don't have to break any bones and I can be good at it," and Christine Nguyen (right), a darts player and model. Players who beat an � Team member during competition (which began in New York City on Oct. 23 and will go to five other cities) qualify to win a trip to the finals in Las Vegas next summer.

?The Chiefs' record-breaking return specialist Dante Hall was funny and engaging in his appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman last Thursday—at one point he said he felt selfish appearing without his blockers. (Letterman tried to put him at ease: "Coach Vermeil called today and said those guys are mostly dead weight.") When asked if he considered himself an MVP candidate, Hall said, "I don't think I play enough snaps.... I would vote for Steve McNair." The show closed with Hall, 25, deftly fielding a football shot high off the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater with a Jugs machine.

?Wearing bib number 30,792 and an I [LOVE] NEW YORK breathe-right strip, P. Diddy finished his much-celebrated New York City Marathon run in 4:14:54, 11,337th out of 34,662 finishers. "Never in my life have I ever experienced anything as crazy as this," said the 33-year-old hip-hop mogul. "I definitely wanted to stop. This is a life-changing experience for me because I did not stop." Celebs like Jennifer Lopez helped him raise about $2 million for charity.

?ABC has hired Justin Timberlake to write music for the network's NBA coverage and to work as a correspondent. TNT hired him last summer, saying he would report on events ranging from basketball to NASCAR—but he has rarely been seen....

Ben Affleck has signed to play basketball coach Don Haskins in Glory Road, a movie based on Haskins's 1966 Texas Western (now Texas-El Paso) team. The Miners, who had an all-black starting lineup, beat Adolph Rupp's all-white Kentucky team to win the national championship. Haskins, who is white, said he was "flattered they wanted to do a movie at all," let alone cast Affleck to play him....

After the World Series, Marlins pitcher Carl Pavano was spotted with Charmed and AT&T vixen Alyssa Milano in Suede, a New York club owned by a pair of die-hard Yankees fans. Still, the owners sent Pavano's party, which included Series MVP Josh Beckett, a magnum of Cristal....

Former Sixers president-cum-self-help guru Pat Croce is developing a syndicated TV show in which he'll move in with families for a week (after studying videotape of members interacting with each other) and become a kind of on-site Dr. Phil. "I help them solve their problems—overweight, injury, lack of motivation," Croce told The Philadelphia Inquirer. "Everyone needs a friend. I'm a friend who has connections."...

She's best known for interviewing girls in bikinis, but Cindy Taylor is branching out to guys in chaps. The host of E!'s Wild On series will be a chute reporter for OLN's coverage of the Professional Bull Riding finals in Las Vegas this weekend.