Many odd things occurred in 2001

 With Barry Bonds closing in on McGwire's major-league home-run record in October, McFarlane said he hoped that if Bonds broke it the ball would drop into the ocean beyond San Francisco's stadium and be swallowed by a whale.

 Bonds did break the record and while his 73rd homer did clear the fence, it stayed in the park in San Francisco. But the ball was soon heading to a courtroom.

 A judge ruled the ball should remain locked up until a trial decides whether it belongs to Alex Popov, who caught the ball but says he was robbed in an ensuing struggle, or Patrick Hayashi, who says he found it loose amid the skirmish. No date has been set but the trial likely won't start until next baseball season.

 Memorabilia collector Karen Shemonsky was elated when the Baseball Hall of Fame agreed to borrow for a five-month exhibit the Ty Cobb false teeth she purchased for $8,000.

 "This is such a thrill," she said. "This was my dream. I always wanted to get them in Cooperstown."

 Odd, but true -- just one of the myriad of wacky things that occurred in the world of sport in 2001.

 Viagra was banned from greyhound racing in Ireland on the grounds that it can make dogs run faster by speeding up their heart rate.

 When foot-and-mouth disease caused the postponement of sporting events in Britain, reducing wagering opportunities, an Internet betting site began offering hamster races to keep bettors happy.

 "We've been running hamsters in these little dragsters," said Ed Pownall, a spokesman for the company. "You put an exercise wheel in the middle of a 10-inch-long (25 centimetre) dragster.

 "As they run in the wheel, it moves the thing forward."

 It didn't last.

 Talking about foot-and-mouth disease, basketball player Charles Oakley was at it again, claiming a majority of NBA players smoke marijuana.

 The gimmicky, made-for-TV XFL debuted, and went up in smoke after a title game few bothered to watch. Jesse (The Body) Ventura, governor of Minnesota, was a commentator.

 "I don't know if he was told to be a roaring river of inanities but that's what he was," New York Times critic Richard Sandomir wrote of Ventura. "Wind him up, and he says nothing, but he says it loudly."

 Loud? You want loud? You've got former NBA star Dennis Rodman's 40th birthday bash in Newport Beach, Calif.

 Police moved when after what police said was an illegal helicopter landing, which deposited the host on the grounds, and a live concert by two rock bands. Some 30 police officers, some in riot gear, gathered nearby. Rodman eventually agreed to move the party to his nearby restaurant.

 Talk about moving, middleweight boxer Aaron Mitchell pulled the disappearing act of the year when he vanished 10 minutes before a bout in Atlantic City, N.J.

 "He said, 'I've got to go to the bathroom,' " Mitchell's trainer told promoter Murad Muhammad. "That was it."

 Mitchell could not be reached for comment.

 Soccer has always been a dangerous sport, on and off the pitch.

 In Quayaquil, Ecuador, the country's national soccer coach, Hernan Dario Gomez, was shot in a leg in a hotel restaurant. The attack was reportedly to even the score for excluding ex-president Abdala Bucaram's son from Ecuador's under-20 soccer team. Gomez submitted his resignation two weeks later.

 Guatemalan soccer goalkeeper Edgar Estrada received more than 100 death threats after a 5-2 loss to Costa Rica meant elimination from the 2002 World Cup.

 Who would have guessed that volleyball has its dark moments, too? Toni Gay, a coach, was fired because she tried to take a meat cleaver into a school after an argument with another woman during a junior high game in Rockford, Ill.

 "I made a mistake," Gay said. "I had a really bad attitude."

 Likewise for former Sri Lankan cricket captain Arjuna Ranatunga, who was accused in Colombo of beating up teenagers who went looking for a cricket ball that dropped over a wall into his garden.

 The bad taste award goes to Brian Kirsch, the former sound-effects operator for the Nashville Sounds baseball team. With a South Korean team in for an exhibition game, Kirsch had a brainwave and played Kung Fu Fighting to try to upset the visitors.

 "He should have known better," said Chris Douglas, the team's director of operations, in explaining why Kirsch was fired.

 The Bronx, N.Y.-based Rolando Paulino All-Stars team at the Little League World Series was scandalized when official records indicated star pitcher Danny Almonte was 14 -- two years over the age limit.

 Danny Blouin of the Quebec team finished third in the 3,000-metre steeplechase during the Canada Games in London, Ont., and was disqualified after mooning the crowd from the podium.

 "It wasn't as if it was just down and up because if it was maybe I would have looked at it differently but it was for quite a length of time," said referee Elaine Lake.

 There also was a lack of tolerance for skin at Cal State-Fullerton. The school kicked Leilani Rios off its track and cross-country teams because she worked as an exotic dancer. The October issue of Playboy was popular in Fullerton, Calif., after coach John Elders took a stand.

 "He gave me an ultimatum between running and stripping and I couldn't do both," said Rios.

 In Britain, squash pro Vicki Botwright was told she wouldn't be allowed to wear a thong during the British Open.

 Baseball went to the dogs in Ottawa, where the triple-A Lynx cordoned off an 800-seat section at JefForm Park for any spectator wanting to bring a dog along for a game. A $2 charge per dog was donated to the Ottawa Humane Society.

 "I can assure you if you are not a dog lover you can come out to the park and enjoy it," said Lynx general manager Kyle Bostwick.

 Then there were those who reminded us one is never too old to get into the game.

 Fred Doig, 73, was in the Excel Transport Bandits lineup last June in Prince George, B.C., so he could have the distinction of playing in a lacrosse game in all of his eight decades on this planet.

 "I don't care what level of sports you play but I really feel that any athlete owes more to the sport than the sport ever owed to the athlete," said Doig.

 Harold Stilson, 101, became the oldest golfer to make a hole-in-one. Stilson used a four-iron to ace the 108-yard 16th hole in Deerfield Beach, Fla.

 Ray Rutherford, 85, who is legally blind but likes to play golf, was credited with the second hold-in-one of his life after acing a 155-yard hole in Winfield, Kan.

 A 71-year-old Roman Catholic nun, scarred from crashing in a previous race, won her age group at the world triathlon championship in Edmonton last July. Racing in the gruelling endurance competitions keeps her close to God, said Sister Madonna of Spokane, Wash.

 "It definitely harmonizes my body and soul," she told The Canadian Press. "You can't be in this very long and not call on God.

 "You learn utter dependence on the person upstairs."

 She'll carry on.

 "I thought I was going to give this up when I reached 60 but my public won't let me," she joked. " It's fun. It keeps me alive."