Miscellany

The Hawaiian winter league has announced it is folding and blamed a financial dispute with Major League Baseball.

The subsidized four-team league said it would have had to pay for 90 percent of its operations for next season and 100 percent in 1999. League costs have ranged from $750,000 to $1 million a year.

Made up of Class A and AA players and Japan league prospects, the Hawaiian league opened in 1993.

In New Haven, Conn., minor league hockey player Paul Ferone paid a $75 fine for hitting a fan with his hockey stick. He pleaded no contest to creating a public disturbance in December when he was with the Syracuse Crunch of the American Hockey League.

Ferone said he swung his stick at a railing to scare off a heckler, but, instead, he hit a fan in the groin. New Haven police arrested him and the AHL suspended him for four games.