PITTSBURGH (AP) - The Pittsburgh Steelers are getting their Super Bowl rings, four months after beating the Arizona Cardinals 27-23 for the franchise’s record sixth championship.
The rings will be presented a private ceremony Tuesday night at Heinz Field. The ring’s design is being kept confidential until then.
Typically, each player gets a ring with their name and number on it. President Dan Rooney, retired running back Jerome Bettis and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger designed the team’s last Super Bowl ring.
On Monday, coach Mike Tomlin said he was excited about getting his ring, but also that it will mark the end of the 2008 season. Now, he says, it’s time to focus on the 2009 season.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Pittsburgh Penguin fans will don their black and gold to rally for their hockey team ahead of a critical game that could determine the Stanley Cup champs.
If the Penguins lose Tuesday’s game against the Detroit Red Wings, the series will be over and the Stanley Cup will go back to the Motor City.
Pittsburgh fans are notoriously loyal to their teams and dozens are expected to gather in the city’s downtown during Tuesday’s lunch hour.
The Red Wings lead the series 3-2 after pummeling the Penguins Saturday night in a 5-0 victory. If the Penguins win Tuesday to tie the series there will be a seventh game in Detroit on Friday.

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - Suspended NFL star Michael Vick is returning to bankruptcy court in Virginia.
A status hearing on Vick’s reorganization plan is scheduled Tuesday in Norfolk.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Frank Santoro rejected Vick’s plan in April and demanded a more realistic one. Santoro said Vick should sell some of his vehicles and one or both of the expensive homes he wanted to keep. The judge also was concerned that the plan depended largely on Vick’s return to the NFL.
League Commissioner Roger Goodell has not said whether he will lift Vick’s suspension. Vick is serving the last two months of his sentence for bankrolling a dogfighting ring on home confinement. He’s scheduled to be released from federal custody July 20.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) - New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady says there’s no baby on the way for him and his wife, supermodel wife Gisele Bundchen.
Brady married Bundchen this winter in a pair of ceremonies in Costa Rica and California. RadarOnline.com reported last week that Bundchen is pregnant.
After practice on Thursday, the quarterback talked about the importance of a wife and “children.” But when reporters asked Brady, who has a son with actress Bridget Moynahan, whether another child was on the way, Brady shook his head and said, “No.”
“One is enough,” Brady said.

By Joe Mandak, Associated Press WriterPITTSBURGH (AP) - A pit bull owned by Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison bit his 2-year-old son in the thigh, but the boy is expected to recover though he remained hospitalized Friday, the player’s agent said.

Harrison’s agent, William Parise, told The Associated Press that James III was bitten after his mother let the dog out of its pen Thursday afternoon. Parise wouldn’t identify the woman, but said she and Harrison’s massage therapist also were hurt trying to help the boy. The massage therapist needed three stitches, Parise said.

Parise said Harrison was not home at the time, but was nearby and alerted after the dog attacked. Parise has not spoken to the boy’s doctors, but Harrison told the agent his son likely will be hospitalized another day or two.

Parise said the boy’s injuries were “serious but certainly not life-threatening. I think any time a child is injured and requires hospitalization, it’s a serious thing. I know James was very concerned about his son.”

The dog was removed by an animal control agency.

Burt Lauten, spokesman for the Super Bowl champion Steelers said the team is “aware of this unfortunate situation. We express our concern for his family and hope that everyone involved makes a complete recovery.”

A Franklin Park police spokeswoman on Friday said police are not commenting because the incident remains under investigation.

Parise said Harrison’s son is at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. A hospital spokesman said the family does not want information released.

Harrison lives about 15 miles north of the city.

Parise said Harrison has not had trouble with the animal in the past.

“I’ve been with that dog personally, he’s a wonderful animal,” Parise said.

Parise said he doesn’t know why the boy’s mother let the dog out of the pen, other than to say he believes it was for a routine reason such as feeding or to care for the animal. The boy’s mother does not live at the house, Parise said.

“There’s no reason to believe that this is anything other than something that sometimes happens to children,” Parise said. “The child should be fine.”

Harrison is the NFL Defensive Player of the Year and scored on a 100-yard interception return in the team’s 27-23 victory over Arizona in Super Bowl XLIII. He made headlines for declining to join the Steelers on a White House visit Thursday, though he passed up the same opportunity after the Steelers beat Seattle in Super bowl XL in 2006.

In 2006, then-Steelers linebacker Joey Porter was cited by police in Pine Township, another suburb north of Pittsburgh, after two of his dogs got loose and killed a miniature horse on a nearby farm. Northern Regional Police said then that Porter’s dogs were licensed in his hometown of Bakersfield, Calif., but not in Allegheny County.

A woman who lives a few houses down from Harrison said his dogs are well-behaved and cared for and are not a problem for neighbors.

“I jog and I run past his house every day and I have never had any problems with that dog whatsoever,” said Marissa Posteraro, 19. “I have never seen the dog or heard the dog bark or whatever so I was very surprised to find out that happened.”

“The dog is very well kept. It’s never gotten loose before that I know of,” she said.

By Larry O’Dell, Associated Press Writer
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - Michael Vick walked into a federal courthouse in Virginia on Friday to meet his probation officer, ignoring questions from waiting reporters about his life under home confinement after being released from a federal prison this week.
The suspended NFL star arrived at the Norfolk courthouse at 10. a.m., his first-known public appearance since he left the Kansas penitentiary undetected early Wednesday and drove cross-country to arrive in Hampton early Thursday, where he began serving two months of home confinement.
The former Atlanta Falcons quarterback is serving a 23-month sentence for a dogfighting conspiracy.
Vick arrived at the courthouse in the passenger seat of a Range Rover driven by his fiancee, Kijafa Frink. She let him out near the front door and Vick walked silently past waiting cameras and reporters, ignoring questions about his first day home and his plans. Vick was wearing jeans, a light blue shirt and a dark blue blazer.
Vick had previously met with probation officials. They came to his house Thursday to equip him with an electronic monitor so they can track his movements until he is released from federal custody July 20. The monitor was not visible under his clothes at the courthouse.
Vick had managed to remain mostly out of sight since returning home in a van equipped with blackout curtains.
But now that he has been outfitted with the electronic monitor, federal officials probably won’t be the only ones watching his movements.
As his first day at home wore on, Vick may have gotten a taste of what’s ahead.
One man twice ignored the “Private property. No trespassing” signs and rang the doorbell, telling family members over an intercom that he had come to pray with and minister to the fallen star. Another visitor wanting to see Vick claimed to be a friend of a friend named “Flattop.” He, too, was turned away, but shouted “I love you, Mike” before leaving the porch, then immediately called a friend to boast he had just spoken with Vick.
Surrounded by family members and supporters celebrating his return, Vick also still had the security team that accompanied him on the trip looking out for him on Thursday.
Vick is likely to continue to encounter people who say he deserves a second chance as well as those who believe his crimes were so egregious that he should never be allowed to play again.
“It’s really inhumane what he did,” said Shaun Brantley, 30, of Chesapeake, who spent hours outside Vick’s home Thursday with his pit bull. “He deserves a whole lot more than what he got.”
There has been no word directly from Vick, and may not be for days.
Larry Woodward, his Virginia-based attorney, accompanied the probation officers to the home and explained afterward that the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback remains a federal inmate and cannot speak to the media without permission from the Bureau of Prisons.
Efforts to get permission are under way, Woodward said, but he gave no further information.
—
AP Sports Writer Hank Kurz Jr. contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama may be a Chicago Bears fan at heart. But at least on Thursday, the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers were his football favorites.
The president celebrated the Steelers’ title at a White House ceremony. Obama and the players also met with wounded U.S. service members and assembled care packages for troops serving overseas.
Obama joked that no matter how big those Steelers players are, he told them he’ll always be a Bears fan first. But the president said he rooted for the Steelers over the Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl.
Steelers president Dan Rooney campaigned for Obama in Pennsylvania during last year’s presidential election. In March, Obama named Rooney as ambassador to Ireland.

KENNEDY TWP. — The Riverside High School girls softball team team defeated Bishop Canevin, 2-0, Thursday afternoon to advance to the WPIAL championship game.

Riverside will play for the championship next Thursday at California University of Pennsylvania.

Complete details and photos will appear in Friday’s Times.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - An attorney for Michael Vick says the suspended NFL star has left a Kansas prison and is on his way back to Virginia to meet the next challenges he’ll face.
Larry Woodward, a member of Vick’s legal team, says Vick left the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth overnight. Woodward says Vick is happy to be starting this part of the process. He’s due to return to Virginia later this week to begin serving the final two months of his sentence under home confinement at a home he owns in Hampton.
Vick had been serving a 23-month sentence for financing a dogfighting ring.
The former Atlanta Falcons quarterback is expected to be released from federal custody July 20, and hopes to persuade NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to reinstate him.

Mike BiresTimes Sports Staff

The Pittsburgh Steelers will visit the White House on Thursday.

Over the past few decades, U.S. presidents have invited championship sports teams, pro and college, to Washington D.C. Such will be the case next week as President Barack Obama will host and honor the Steelers, winners of Super Bowl XLIII.

The Steelers’ last visit to the White House was in May of 2006 when they were honored by then-president George. W. Bush for their victory in Super Bowl XL.

Read more about the Steelers’ White House visit in Sunday’s edition of The Times.