August 26, 2005

The Yankees were so indifferent to Shawn Chacon that they never moved off their original offer for him. For two weeks in July, with the Yankees all but holding open pitching tryouts, they waited as the Colorado Rockies shopped Chacon to other teams. The Rockies wanted pitchers Sean Henn and Scott Proctor. Essentially, the Yankees dared Colorado to find a better deal than Ramon Ramirez and Eduardo Sierra, two lesser pitching prospects. When the Rockies relented July 28, Chacon joined the Yankees to little fanfare.

Hundreds of people across New Jersey have been displaced from their homes as part of once-celebrated $8.6 billion program that, instead of creating new schools, has in several instances created new slums; in many towns, school officials rushed to get residents out to make way for new schools, but now that schools are not coming, no one seems to know what to do with all the vacant property; New Jersey Schools Construction Commission, established three years ago to bring new schools to poorest districts, has been accused of wasting millions of dollars on excessive bonuses, exorbitant fees and design errors; description of new blight on one street in Newark, former stable community of owner-occupied homes; photos; maps (M)

The first inning of Pedro Martínez's start Thursday provided a glimpse of how dominant he can be even when he is having difficulty controlling the movement of his pitches. Of his 21 pitches, 13 were for balls, and Martínez walked two batters and hit another, Arizona's Luis Gonzalez, who gave the Mets' starter an icy stare. But every pitch danced and darted and fluttered so much that hitters had little chance to put good wood on it. In a way, even when Martínez did not make his intended pitch, he did.

Article in series Being A Patient focuses on plight of sick or disabled single people without obvious person to look after them; demographers warn that graying of baby boom generation will swell already growing ranks of single-person households, with illness and disability inevitable corollary of old age; American Hospital Assn official James Bentley says sick people in hospital and afterward need health advocate, and some single persons end up being their own advocates at particularly vulnerable time; says situation is made worse by increase in short stays in hospitals, which sometimes send people home before they can manage alone; people who live alone without obvious next-of-kin for emergency contact forms must rely on patchwork support from professionals and friends; Bentley sees need for hospitals to develop new ways of preparing such patients for what lies ahead and for people who live alone to consider, before they are ill, what organized networks they can call on; cases cited; photos (L)

Anthony Tommasini Critic's Notebook column offers capsule reviews of reissued recordings that have been released in last year; photos (M)