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If a 10-hour overnight bus ride seems exhausting, imagine playing a four-hour baseball game in near-triple-digit heat on a Sunday afternoon less than five hours after getting off the bus.

And losing.

Mental exhaustion has probably replaced the positive feelings the Wingnuts had after winning games in St. Paul on Friday and Saturday.

Wichita lost 9-8 to Sioux City on Sunday at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium despite getting a hit in every inning but the one it most needed a rally starter -- the ninth.

The Wingnuts' pitching failed them. Starter Asher Demme, making his debut with the team, didn't make it out of the first, Justin Young couldn't protect a lead and Kevin Cheppenko allowed five hits and two walks in 1 2/3 innings.

Bruce Vaughan's first victory at golf's highest levels came on one of its major stages. Vaughan won the Senior British Open on Sunday, sinking a 20-foot putt to beat John Cook on the first playoff hole.

Cook squandered a three-stroke lead with eight holes to play at Royal Troon. On the 72nd hole Cook sent his tee shot right into the rough and then played his third shot well short of the green. He made a bogey to finish with an even-par 71 and a 6-under 278 total.

Vaughan, a Hutchinson resident, made his par for a 70 that sent the Americans back to No. 18 to begin the playoff, the championship's third in four years.

Vaughan pitched to the center of the green and sank his 20-footer for birdie. When Cook missed his putt from 12 feet, the former firefighter had his first tournament on victory the senior or regular PGA Tour. Vaughan also earned his biggest paycheck, $312,258.

"Money is great, but until you win, you're just another player," Vaughan said. "It's all about winning. You only get a few of these."

He never actually entered a huddle, never suggested a play to Chan Gailey or called a defense for Gunther Cunningham.

But Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt spent a good portion of training camp's first three days watching practice. Not just from the sideline, but at times from the field. He might have had more practice-field time than any NFL owner but Dallas' Jerry Jones, who is also the Cowboys' general manager.

Hunt's field time was spent mostly in quiet, solitary observation. Still, it was yet another sign that Hunt is more than just a caretaker.

"I want the football team and the coaching staff and the organization to know that our family's passion for the Chiefs did not pass away when my father left us," he said. "I also want them to know the expectations for our excellence start with our family. From a leadership standpoint, that's important for the entire organization.

"I'm not spending any more time on football issues than I did last year. I am more visible publicly and to the team. It's a by-product of my desire to be more involved."

Billy Butler is enjoying his torrid stretch at the plate, even if he isn't sure why he's in such a groove offensively.

Butler homered and drove in four runs, Kyle Davies picked up his first victory in more than a month and the Royals beat the Tampa Bay Rays 6-1 Sunday to salvage a split of their four-game series.

Butler, who was sent to the minors for a month on May 29, is hitting .341 with four homers and 14 RBIs in nine games since the All-Star break.

"When you're going good, you're going to produce runs," Butler said. "I don't feel like I'm doing anything different, but obviously I'm swinging it better. Maybe I'm getting more comfortable. I'm not worried about anything.

"Maybe I made some adjustments, but maybe it's just relaxing and swinging at good pitches. That's the key to hitting if you can swing at the right pitches."

z-clinched title.

Sunday's Results

Liberal 8-8, El Dorado 1-6

Hays 4-3, Nevada 3-2

Manny Ramirez is "tired" of the Boston Red Sox and would agree to a trade that would make both him and the team happy.

But he doesn't think it will happen and Boston, battling for a playoff spot, needs the production of its cleanup hitter despite its oft-contentious relationship with him.

Four days before the non-waiver trading deadline, Ramirez said Sunday, "I'm tired of them. They're tired of me."

The Red Sox have until Nov. 9 to pick up a $20 million option for next year on Ramirez, who would have to approve any trade as a 10-year veteran with five years on the same team. They also have a $20 million option for 2010. Ramirez is in the final year of his guaranteed eight-year, $160 million contract.

Ramirez spoke for less than two minutes in Boston's clubhouse before Sunday night's game with the New York Yankees.

Orioles 5, Angels 2 --Baltimore ended its run of 15 straight losses in Sunday games, defeating LA's Ervin Santana behind a sharp pitching performance by Garrett Olson.

• Olson (7-5) allowed two runs and seven hits in six-plus innings, breaking a run of eight games in which an Orioles starter failed to get through the sixth. The rookie's first win since June 28 came against a Los Angeles team that had scored 31 runs in its previous three games, and it helped the Orioles ended a five-game losing streak.

Tigers 6, White Sox 4 -- Curtis Granderson and Marcus Thames homered and Detroit beat Chicago to avoid a three-game sweep.

• Miguel Cabrera drove in two runs and Ivan Rodriguez went 4 for 4 for third-place Detroit, which pulled within 6 ½ games of the AL Central-leading White Sox.... Jermaine Dye homered for the third straight day and A.J. Pierzynski also went deep for the White Sox, who had won four straight.

Twins 4, Indians 2 -- Justin Morneau sparked a two-run, ninth-inning rally with an RBI double and Minnesota beat Cleveland to pull within 2 ½ games of first-place Chicago.

Amari Lipscomb's love of running takes her places

When Amari Lipscomb was 5 years old, she wanted to come out to summer track practice with her older brother, Alonte.

Her father, Marvin Dwayne Lipscomb, then the coach of the Wichita Athletics Track Club, agreed. But only if she didn't get in the way.

While she wasn't quite ready to compete, she listened enough to pick up some key points.

"She'd concentrate on her form and everything," her father said. "She'd come with me to practice and hear me and then work on it with Alonte at home.... She'd mimic her brother."

Bob Hope and Bing Crosby might be on the road to nowhere if they tried to team up today the way they did in old Hollywood.

Today's funny folks reunite now and then, like Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly in "Step Brothers," a follow-up to their 2006 comedy "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby."

But cynical audiences now might carp at perpetual pairings that were a movie staple in the days of Hope and Crosby, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy or Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon or Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson have hung around together on screen or popped up in cameos in each other's movies, but even they have to be mindful of moviegoers who gripe that Hollywood dishes out too much of the same old thing.

"It became a stigma, which is kind of unfair," Ferrell told the Associated Press in an interview alongside Reilly. "Could Hope and Crosby exist today without getting, like, here they go, another 'Road' picture? Let me guess, 'Road to Bali.' They'll probably open with a song, then they'll get in trouble, then more of the same. You'd just get picked apart."