Fast Break

NFL

Faith Hill opens for NBC football

Country star Faith Hill will sing the opening theme to NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” this season.

Hill will perform “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night” before each game, the network announced Wednesday. The song, which Pink sang last season, is set to the tune of Joan Jett’s ‘80s hit, “I Hate Myself for Loving You.”

Hill is married to fellow country singer Tim McGraw. A couple of years ago, McGraw sang the music to “I Like It, I Love It” with the lyrics rewritten to go with the halftime highlight reel on “Monday Night Football.”

Baseball

Spokane lands two All-Stars

Spokane Indians Jonathan Greene and Ryan Falcon have been named to the Northwest League 2007 All-Star team.

Greene, a catcher with a .251 batting average, has been a force on offense for the Indians this season. Greene is fourth in the league in home runs (11) and ninth in RBIs (44).

Falcon, a left-handed reliever, has a 2.45 ERA and 54 strikeouts in 40 1/3 innings pitched.

The All-Star list was dominated by four players and manager Steve Decker from Salem-Keizer.

Olympics

Atlanta bombing hero, villain dies

Richard Jewell, the former security guard who was erroneously linked to the 1996 Olympic bombing, died Wednesday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said.

Jewell, 44, was found dead in his west Georgia home, GBI spokesman John Bankhead said.

“There’s no suspicion whatsoever of any type of foul play. He had been at home sick since the end of February with kidney problems,” said Meriwether County Coroner Johnny Worley.

Jewell was initially hailed as a hero for spotting a suspicious backpack in a park and moving people out of harm’s way just before a bomb exploded during a concert at the Atlanta Summer Olympics.

The blast killed one and injured 111 others.

Three days after the bombing, an unattributed report in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution described him as “the focus” of the investigation.

Eventually, the bomber was revealed to be anti-government extremist Eric Rudolph.