Kings’ Hurley Hopes to Play Next Season

Sacramento King rookie guard Bobby Hurley said Thursday that he hopes to play basketball again next season.

Back at Arco Arena for the first time since his near-fatal car accident on Dec. 12, Hurley said doctors have told him the goal is achievable.

“That’s my goal,” Hurley said at his first news conference since the crash. “I think it will take maybe two or three months before I’ll be able to shoot a basketball. After that, maybe four months before I actually start playing.”

Hurley looked gaunt and weak, but walked unassisted from the parking lot to the news conference, stopping to autograph a basketball for a fan.

Golf

Robin Freeman, making the most of his new life on the tour, capped a nine-under-par 63 with a last-hole eagle for a three-shot lead in the opening round of the Hawaiian Open. Freeman’s bogey-free round over the Waialae Country Club course in Honolulu was the best of his four years on the PGA Tour. He is the only golfer to lead the tour’s qualifying school twice--in 1988 and last year. Brett Ogle and Craig Parry shared second at 66.

Tennis

Defending champion Pete Sampras moved into the final of the New South Wales Open with a 6-3, 6-3 victory today over Petr Korda in a sloppy, wind-swept match. Sampras will face Ivan Lendl or Todd Martin in Saturday’s all-American final.

Patrick McEnroe defeated Frenchman Rodolphe Gilbert, 4-6, 7-5, 7-5, to advance to the quarterfinals of the New Zealand Open in Auckland.

Baseball

Michael Jordan, craving a new challenge only months after retiring from the Chicago Bulls, wants to play baseball with the Chicago White Sox and has been working out at Comiskey Park.

“I want to go to spring training for one reason and that’s to make the team,” Jordan was quoted as saying in Thursday’s editions of the Chicago Tribune. “This is no fantasy. I plan to be in Sarasota by mid-February.”

White Sox General Manager Ron Schueler, who said a decision on whether to invite Jordan to spring training will be made next month, said that the likelihood of Jordan making the team this season “is at best a longshot.”

Joseph C. (Mule) Sprinz, a San Francisco Seals catcher known for trying unsuccessfully to catch a baseball tossed from a blimp, has died at 91. The first ball dropped 800 feet from the “Volunteer” during the 1939 World’s Fair on Treasure Island hit and broke a bleacher seat. The second ball glanced off Sprinz’s glove and hit him in the face. Sprinz fractured his jaw and lost four teeth.

Pitcher Jim Deshaies left the San Francisco Giants and signed a one-year contract with the team that traded him to the Giants Aug. 28, the Minnesota Twins. . . . Outfielder Daryl Boston, who played for the Colorado Rockies last season, signed a minor league contract with the New York Yankees.

Miscellany

At least one Wisconsin travel agent made a midnight connection carrying a suitcase full of cash to get customers into the Rose Bowl, Wisconsin Attorney General James Doyle said. “Trying to get tickets was much like trying to make a drug deal,” Doyle said by telephone to two California Assembly committees investigating the Rose Bowl ticket distribution system. Many fans paid $500 or more for a ticket or got stuck without tickets they ordered. . . . China’s Wang Junxia, who set world records for the women’s 3,000 meters and 10,000 meters last year, won the 1994 Jesse Owens International Trophy Award. . . . Marty Hawkins, the former women’s basketball coach at Loyola of Chicago, filed a lawsuit against the school, contending he was fired because he spoke out for gender equity in Loyola’s athletic programs. . . . Richard Park, 17, of Rancho Palos Verdes was rated the 10th-best prospect in June’s entry draft in mid-term rankings issued by the NHL’s Central Scouting Bureau. No California-bred player has ever been drafted in the first round and none has been rated this high since the NHL began keeping data in 1974.