Gold Medalist Baiul Injured in Car Crash

Figure skater Oksana Baiul was hospitalized Sunday because of a concussion and needed 12 stitches from injuries sustained in an early-morning car crash at Bloomfield, Conn.

Baiul, 19, the 1994 Olympic champion from Ukraine, sustained a cut to her scalp and was held overnight at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center, said a hospital spokesman.

Another person in the car, Ararat Zakarian, 30, of New York City, was treated for a broken finger and released from the hospital.

Baseball

Multimillion-dollar salaries weren’t enough for some Dominican major leaguers who have been selling U.S. visas on the black market to would-be illegal immigrants, a Santo Domingo newspaper reported.

According to El Nacional, baseball players and scouts request visas for family members to attend games in the United States, and then sell them for as much as $6,000 on the street.

The paper did not release any names or cite a source for its report.

Jerry Neudecker--the last major league umpire to wear a balloon chest protector--died of cancer at age 66 at Columbia-Fort Walton Beach (Fla.) Medical Center.

Miscellany

Washington Coach June Daugherty says Oregon fans spat on her so much she had to towel off during the Pacific 10 Conference women’s basketball game between the Huskies and the Ducks at Eugene, Ore., on Saturday.

“I think it is really a lack of class by their fans,” she said after Oregon’s 67-60 victory. “It’s really gross on their part. These fans need to look at themselves. I had spit on me the whole game.”

The Tampa Bay Mutiny signed forward Roy Lassiter to a three-year contract. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed. . . . Daniel Zaragoza, 39, earned a split decision over Wayne McCullough, 26, on Saturday night at Boston to retain his World Boxing Council super-bantamweight title. . . . Sweden’s Jonas Bjorkman defeated Denmark’s Kenneth Carlsen, 7-6 (7-0), 6-0, to win the New Zealand Open tennis tournament.

Winter Sports

Even a healthy Alberto Tomba would have had trouble defeating Austria’s Thomas Sykora, whose victory at Chamonix, France, was the most convincing in the last two years of World Cup slalom skiing.

Sykora was timed in 1 minute, 56.38 seconds for the two runs, 1.66 seconds faster than the field. Tomba was second after the first run but passed up the second run because of flu.

Six years after her first World Cup victory, an extremely fit Pernilla Wiberg won a Super G race at the same venue at Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria. Wiberg won with a time of 1:39.98 seconds. . . . Slovenia’s Primoz Peterka, 17, won his second consecutive World Cup ski jumping event at Engelberg, Switzerland. Janne Ahonen of Finland was second. . . . The Dutch duo of Ids Postma and Tonny de Jong became the new men’s and women’s European All-Round Speedskating champions at Heerenveen, Netherlands. . . . Chris Witty overcame a bout with bronchitis and won the 1,000-meter race for the second consecutive day in 1:20.42 at a World Cup speedskating event at Milwaukee.