Sports

3000.' Film critic David Edelstein reviews two new films, Wimbledon and Mr. 3000.

TV critic David Bianculli on the upcoming coverage of the Olympics.

Sellers is one of the top jockeys in his profession. His winnings top $100 million. He's ridden two Breeder's Cup winners, and has ridden in 14 Kentucky Derbies. Shane Sellers appears in the upcoming HBO Undercover documentary Jockey. The film delves into aspects of jockey's lives that are not widely known. Jockeys endure a punishing regime of sweating and purging to make weight minimums, and many work without contracts and health insurance.

Sokolove is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. His new book, The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw, is about the former baseball star whose drug addiction ended his career and the high school team he played for in South Central Los Angeles. Sokolove calls it the greatest assemblage of talent in the history of high school baseball.

He is the all-time hits leader with 4,256. He played in over 500 games at five different positions. But he was banned from baseball 13 years ago when he was accused of gambling on the game. In his new book "Peter Rose: My Prison Without Bars" (with Rick Hill) Rose admits for the first time that he gambled on baseball. Rose still hopes — and so do many of his supporters — that one day he will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. (This interview continues in the second half of the show.)

He wrote the book Touching the Void about his ill-fated climb of Siula Grande mountain in Peru with his climbing partner Simon Yates. Now there's a movie adaptation of the book. During the climb, Simpson fell and broke several bones in his leg, crippling him. His friend, determined to find a way to get Simpson home, tied their two lengths of rope together (each was 150 feet) and lowered his friend down the mountain 300 feet at a time. When Simpson failed to respond to Yate's signal to retie the rope, Yates made the agonizing decision to cut the rope.

Ken Kaiser's new book, co-written with David Fisher, is called Planet of the Umps: A Baseball Life from Behind the Plate. A 1986 Sporting News poll called Kaiser the most colorful umpire in the American League. He left the major leagues in 2001, after calling balls, strikes and outs for more than 3,000 games.

Helen Stickler's new documentary, Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator, tells the story of former skateboarding star Mark "Gator" Rogowski. Rogowski is now serving 31 years in prison for the rape and murder of a former girlfriend. Ken Park, a former skateboarder and friend of Rogowski, is interviewed in the film. Park is now the president and CEO of John Galt Media. Stickler is an Emmy-nominated writer, producer and director of documentary films and commercials.

Doug Spreen is one of the official trainers for the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) and has worked with the world's top tennis players, including Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick. He is responsible for the health of the players, deals with their injuries before and after competition, and tends to them while they are competing. Spreen often has to run onto the court and check on athletes who are injured during play.

Writer Carlo Rotella takes a look inside the world of boxing in his new book, Cut Time: An Education at the Fights. Rotella is also the author of Good With Their Hands: Boxers, Bluesmen, and Other Characters from the Rust Belt. Rotella is a professor at Boston College, where he teaches American literature, American studies, urban literatures and cultures, and creative and nonfiction writing. His essays have appeared in Harper's, Washington Post Magazine and Best American Essays 2001.

He has won three Kentucky Derbys, two Preakness Stakes and three Belmont Stakes. Now 40 years old, he has been riding professionally since he was 16. Stevens is the author of the autobiography, The Perfect Ride and has a part in the new film Seabiscuit as jockey George Woolf.

His new book is Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. It's the story of how the Oakland A's turned their team around and made history, winning 20 games in a row to set a new American League record. Lewis goes behind the scenes and finds a new kind of baseball knowledge. He is the author of the best selling books Liar's Poker and The New New Thing.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Seabiscuit.

Gordon is a sports journalist and Bonner is a specialist on North Korea. They collaborated on the documentary The Game of Their Lives about the most shocking upset in World Cup History: It was July 19, 1966, and the scrappy underdog North Korean team beat the favored Italians, whose players were some of the finest in the world. Later the Korean team lost in the quarterfinals to Portugal. Then the players returned home and disappeared from view.

Novelist Pat Conroy is the author of several books including The Great Santini, and The Prince of Tides which were both made into feature films. Conroy's new book My Losing Season (Doubleday) is a memoir about how playing basketball for the Citadel Military College transformed his life. Conroy was point guard and captain of the Citadel Bulldogs.

Boxer Laila Ali. Shes the only one of heavyweight champ Mohammed Alis nine children to choose a life in the ring. Her recent bout with Jacqui Frazier was the most highly publicized female boxing event ever. Shes written an autobiography called REACH! Finding Strength, Spirit and Personal Power.

Actor and rapper Will Smith. His film Ali in which he stars as fighter Muhammad Ali is now out on video and DVD. This summer he stars in Men in Black II. Smith also starred in the films The Legend of Bagger Vance, Men In Black, Independence Day, and Six Degrees of Separation. Smith got his start as a rapper, making his first record in high school. Known as the Fresh Prince he and his friend DJ Jazzy Jeff went on to make several albums and won two Grammys and three American Music Awards. He also starred in his own TV sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

Sherpa Jamling Tenzing Norgay was Climbing Leader for the 1996 Everest IMAX Filming Expedition and summitted the Mountain that year. He's also the son of Tenzing Norgay, one of the first men in history to summit Mt. Everest. In his book, Touching My Father's Soul, Jamling Norgay recounts his 1996 Mt. Everest ascent: the climb and its familial meaning. He now heads Tenzing Norgay Adventures, which is based in India. This interview originally aired April 19, 2001.

Host of NPR's Talk of the Nation, Neal Conan. During the summer of 2000, he took a hiatus from his duties at NPR to follow the fortunes of the Aberdeen Arsenal, a minor league baseball team. Conan pursued a lifelong dream: to become a baseball announcer. He writes about it in his new book: Play by Play: Baseball, Radio and Life in the Last Chance League (Crown Publishers).