01:00 AM EDT on Friday, April 7, 2006

Dodgers closer Eric Gagne will have surgery today to remove a nerve from his pitching elbow, his second arm operation in less than a year.

Team spokesman Josh Rawitch said there is no timetable for the return of Gagne, who saved 152 games from 2002-04 and was a near-unanimous winner of the N.L. Cy Young Award in 2003.

Rawitch said surgery on the 30-year-old right-hander will be performed by Dr. Frank Jobe and Dr. Ralph Gambardella of the team's medical staff at the Kerlan-Jobe Clinic in Los Angeles. It's the same nerve that was moved during an operation last June.

"I'm very disappointed because I thought this would be behind us," Gagne said in a statement issued through the Dodgers. "It was a decision where I wanted to be 100 percent and be myself and enjoy it because I can't pitch with that kind of pain."

Gagne had eight saves in as many chances in 14 games last season. He didn't pitch in the Dodgers' first three games this year, sitting out an 11-10 season-opening loss Monday to Atlanta in a game Los Angeles never led, and serving a two-game suspension after that.

The Dodgers acquired Danys Baez from Tampa Bay during the offseason. Baez saved 41 games last season.

ROUNDUP

NO PRIDE FOR BOYD: Former Red Sox pitcher Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd won't be playing for the Nashua Pride after all. The team has voided an agreement with Boyd to play this season, less than a week after announcing a tentative deal. The deal was contingent on a favorable resolution to Boyd's legal problems in Oxford, Miss., where he has been indicted on federal charges he threatened his former girlfriend and her son by telephone. Pride manager Butch Hobson said the Pride changed its mind after he reviewed the details of the case and talked to Boyd by telephone earlier this week.

NEW METS STADIUM: With an eye on the future, New York Mets officials stirred up the past yesterday when they unveiled a stadium design reminiscent of Ebbets Field, the storied home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. One day after the city council approved several key aspects of an $800-million stadium for the Yankees, Gov. George Pataki, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and team officials announced plans at Shea Stadium for a new Mets home to be built in the parking lot of the existing ballpark.

DAUGHTER RELEASED: The infant daughter of New York Yankees reliever Scott Proctor was released from a hospital yesterday after she underwent successful surgery to fix a serious heart ailment. One-month-old Mary Elizabeth had surgery to fix a narrowing in her heart's aorta, the pipeline that carries blood to be distributed through arteries, said Dr. Eliot Rosenkranz, director of congenital heart surgery at Holtz Children's Hospital.

MORE BONDS REVELATIONS: Barry Bonds dispatched weight trainer Greg Anderson to Minneapolis in the summer of 2002 to give emergency "help" to slumping Gary Sheffield, a federal judge has told Major League Baseball. In correspondence sent March 16 to commissioner Bud Selig, Larry M. Boyle, Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge in Boise, Idaho, described a chance meeting with Anderson, who according to court records in the BALCO steroids case provided banned drugs to Bonds, Sheffield and other baseball stars. Anderson, Bonds' longtime trainer, pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy and money-laundering charges in 2004 and recently completed a three-month federal prison term.

MARINERS-DEVIL RAYS DEAL: The Seattle Mariners acquired Class A pitcher Jose De La Cruz from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays yesterday for Marcos Carvajal in a swap of right-handers. The 22-year-old De La Cruz was 3-6 with a 3.94 E.R.A. and 19 saves in 50 games for Class-A Southwest Michigan in 2005. The Devil Rays signed him in 2002.

YANKS GET HILL: The New York Yankees claimed catcher Koyie Hill off waivers from the Arizona Diamondbacks yesterday. New York, which already is carrying three catchers, must make a roster move when Hill reports to the team.