STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE COLUMNS

Jay Price writes about sports for the Staten Island Advance

• Five rings worth of inspiration
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Tell the truth. They got you again, didn't they?

• STATEN ISLAND AMATEUR
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- If Mike Pszczola was going to get his Staten Island Amateur, it wasn't going to come cheap.

• Jets let Brett scratch his itch
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Brett Favre's a Jet.

• Time for Yankees to step on it
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The Yankees didn't set out to show everybody how good they could be without half the varsity.

• Wise, old hands rule the day
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- This was going to be the year the kids assumed ownership of the Staten Island Amateur.

• Favre makes Jets relevant
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE -- The guy with the white stubble in his beard -- not to be confused with the white-haired dude in the Paris Hilton commercials -- hung up the phone in Hattiesburg, Miss., which is about as far from Broadway as you can get and still be in the United States of Football, and smiled at his wife.

• Favre makes Jets relevant
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE -- The guy with the white stubble in his beard -- not to be confused with the white-haired dude in the Paris Hilton commercials -- hung up the phone in Hattiesburg, Miss., which is about as far from Broadway as you can get and still be in the United States of Football, and smiled at his wife.

• Yanks get a monkey off their backs
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- There, that's more like it, huh?

• Olympic movement doesn't move him
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Contrary to the rumors, the Summer Olympics will go on as scheduled, despite the killer smog in Beijing, the algae threatening to smother the ocean at the yachting venue, and the absence of most of this country's sporting press, who will be busy trying to crawl inside Brett Favre's head as he waffles over daily life decisions: tuna salad or peanut butter and jelly?

• Counting blessings ... and playoff shares?
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE -- Brian Cashman could be forgiven.

• Finally, a tough ticket in St. George
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The cardboard signs, signaling a sea change at the Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St. George, are taped to the box-office windows where, on another night from some other season, seasonal workers would've been punching out last-minute tickets.

• Are fans at the breaking point?
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Could this be it?

• Delgado, Mussina enjoying unlikely revivals
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Nothing has been more surprising, or more fun to watch this baseball season -- not even the daily Manny-being-Manny drama playing out in Boston -- than the reawakening of Carlos Delgado and Mike Mussina.

• RIVALRY WITH PHILS HEATING UP
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE -- Maybe the Mets, who used to go in for this kind of thing in a big way, can turn it into one of those nifty marketing slogans, like "Our time, our team," or "Baseball like it oughta be."

• Inquisitive Atlas headed for Beijing
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The story, like so many of the stories that have informed Teddy Atlas's life, and his life's work, first as a boxing trainer and in more recent years as the most recognizable voice in the sport, originates with Cus D'Amato, his onetime mentor.