OFFBEAT : ONE THING IS CERTAIN, IT WAS NO PITCHER'S DUEL.

The Emory Eagles baseball team won the first game of the doubleheader 30-0. They were just warming up.

By day's end, they had scored 82 runs and allowed none, set 22 school records, set one national mark and tied two others.

``We played well in the first game, and it snowballed in the second,'' Kevin Howard, coach of the Atlanta college, said. ``It's just one of those fluke things that happens in baseball.''

The victim was the first-year team of Morris Brown College, also of Atlanta. They had met earlier in the season; Emory won 22-1 in a regulation nine-inning game.

Snookered: Ronnie O'Sullivan, the world's third ranked snooker player, could be thrown out of the World Championships in Sheffield, England, after allegedly assaulting an official.

Press officer Mike Ganley ordered one of O'Sullivan's friends out of the press area, restricted to media and players only. O'Sullivan apparently took exception and allegedly assaulted Ganley. O'Sullivan, a 20-year-old from outside London, could become the first player in the 69-year history of the tournament to be thrown out.

O'Sullivan stunned fans last week when he was so far ahead of Canadian player Alain Robidoux that he decided to show off by switching to left-handed.

This bike races for gold: United States cyclist Dirk Copeland remembers being at the starting line in the 1992 Olympics, checking out his competition and thinking he and the rest of the American team didn't have a chance of winning.

The problem: Bad bikes.

Copeland felt as if he and his teammates were on Schwinns while other countries had Corvettes.

Not anymore. Nearly four years of testing - much of it in the General Motors wind tunnel used to improve automobile technology - have resulted in Superbike II, an ultra-thin, gold-seeking bike to be exclusively used by the U.S. in the team pursuit race on the Olympic velodrome just outside Atlanta.

Looking at it headfirst, the bike is hardly visible. All components disappear within a frame that's amazingly streamlined. Even things like nuts and bolts are hidden.