Fast Break

BASEBALL

Mariners honor Niehaus

Dave Niehaus has reached the big time. He now has his own bobblehead.

The Seattle broadcaster was honored Sunday with a presentation before the Mariners’ game against the Baltimore Orioles. For “Dave Niehaus Day,” fans were given a bobblehead doll of the man who called the first pitch in franchise history on April 6, 1977, and is now in his 32nd season with the team.

A week earlier Niehaus was inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., with the Ford C. Frick award.

“Last Sunday went a lot easier,” Niehaus told the crowd.

“The award is yours not mine,” he added. “We have the best fans in baseball.”

HORSE RACING

Big Brown wins Haskell

Big Brown bounced back from his last-place finish in the Belmont Stakes with a victory in the $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J.

The win was in doubt until the final strides, when Big Brown finished with a flourish under jockey Kent Desormeaux and beat 20-1 long shot Coal Play by 1 3/4 lengths before a cheering crowd of 45,132 at Monmouth Park.

The 1 1/8-mile Haskell was Big Brown’s first race since his Belmont flop ended the colt’s quest to become the first Triple Crown champion since Affirmed in 1978.

Winner of the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, Big Brown never had to rally in the stretch before. The 3-year-old colt won his first five starts by a combined 39 lengths before his inexplicable performance in the Belmont 57 days ago, when he was pulled up with a quarter-mile to go.

GOLF

Sorenstam finishes with a birdie

Huddled under an umbrella in the pouring rain, Annika Sorenstam walked up to the 18th green in the final round of her final major to take the cheers from the fans. A sign on the scoreboard said: “Annika, you will be missed.”

It was telling that the departing Swede, who dominated women’s golf for a decade and won 10 majors and 72 LPGA titles, had been passed going the other way by a 20-year-old Korean. Ji-Yai Shin was on the first fairway and on her way to winning the Women’s British Open at Sunningdale, England.

Although Sorenstam rolled in a 10-foot birdie for her final putt in a major to end with a 4-under 68, she was nowhere near finishing with a victory.

“I wish I wanted it as much as I used to, but I don’t,” she said.

Sorenstam insisted her intensity never dropped through the final round.

“I think I was born with intensity,” she said. “I think I was born to compete. …. but I just don’t have that. When you have the mind of a champion and the mind of a competitor, but then there’s a few pieces missing, that’s hard to accept sometimes.”