Baseball roundup

Wednesday, March 30, 2005 | 8:45 a.m.

SUN WIRE SERVICES

Former Arizona third baseman and UNLV standout Matt Williams announced Tuesday he is becoming a partner in the Diamondbacks and will invest $3 million in the club over the next 10 years.

Williams, who joined the expansion Diamondbacks in 1998, will own one-half of 1 percent of the team, paying $300,000 a year via a deferred investment that allows him to pay 10 percent each year. The commissioner's office approved Williams as a partner last week, a formality in the process.

"I think I had an opportunity like no other that I've had," said Williams, who was hired in February as a special assistant to Jeff Moorad, the Diamondbacks' general partner. "That doesn't come around very often."

Managing partner Ken Kendrick and Moorad presented the idea to Williams "some time" ago and he talked it over with his wife and kids before making the decision.

The couple have four children -- ages 15, 14, 12 and 14 months -- and wanted to make sure this would be a wise financial decision. The fact Williams could make annual payments was a plus.

"Certainly for anybody that's a lot of money," Williams said. "You have to definitely think about it. Since I've been retired I've done a lot of things, but there's only one thing I really know, and that's baseball. ... It keeps me in the game and keeps me active within all aspects of it. That part of it was a no-brainer."

Pellman, who is also team doctor for the Jets and the Islanders and a former president of the National Football League Physicians Society, has said repeatedly in biographical statements that he has a medical degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

But Pellman attended medical school in Guadalajara, Mexico, and he received a medical degree from the New York State Education Department after a one-year residency at SUNY-Stony Brook, state records show. He does not hold an M.D. from Stony Brook, according to Dan Rosett, a university hospital spokesman.

In papers sent to Harvard University for a seminar and to the House Committee on Government Reform, which held the hearings on steroids in baseball two weeks ago, Pellman identified himself as an associate clinical professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

But he is an assistant clinical professor, a lower-ranking and honorary position that is held by thousands of doctors, a medical college official said.

"It kind of clicked for me, arm-angle-wise," Schilling said. "I threw a ball and knew. It happens every spring at some point where you kind of make an adjustment and go, 'OK, that's what it was.' "

That began what was an encouraging afternoon for Schilling. He had given up consecutive doubles to begin the game and allowed two runs, one earned, on three hits in the first inning.

But between the second and fifth, he recorded six of his seven strikeouts and allowed just two base runners, one via walk, the other on a broken-bat single.

Out of the majors since 2003, Gil will report to the Mets' minor league camp. He hit .304 (7-for-23) with one homer and three RBIs this spring for Seattle.