NEW YORK -- Ben Roethlisberger is receiving time off for good behavior.

He'll be back on the field for the Pittsburgh Steelers two games earlier than expected after convincing NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell that he is turning his life around.

The star quarterback, accompanied by Steelers president Art Rooney, met with Goodell early Friday and was told he could return for an Oct. 17 contest against the Cleveland Browns after missing four games.

Roethlisberger was suspended in April for six games for violating the league's personal-conduct policy, but Goodell said at the time that he would review the quarterback's behavior over the next few months. Goodell was satisfied that Roethlisberger has followed the league's guidelines and stayed out of trouble.

The human body, in its beautifully flawed way, is built to withstand only so much before it breaks. Stephen Strasburg pushed his right elbow to the zenith of performance until it snapped on him. The accompanying news that Strasburg will miss at least a year when he undergoes Tommy John surgery caused another injury, one more far acute and widespread: Every Washington Nationals fan suffered a broken heart.

The repair of Strasburg’s torn ulnar collateral ligament will almost assuredly succeed. To envision him on the mound during spring training in 2012, throwing 100-mph darts, is no pipe dream.

Mending a dispirited fan base, on the other hand, will take years, and perhaps some psychotropic drugs to erase from their memories the Nationals’ first six seasons in Washington. Oh, there were moments to savor, chief among them Strasburg’s incredible 14-strikeout debut June 8. More than anything, though, being a Nationals fan has meant rooting for a team with allegedly corrupt management, sitting inside a half-empty stadium funded almost completely by tax dollars unilaterally spent by the city council, not witnessing a single winning ballclub and placing every iota of remaining hope on a 22-year-old whose right arm, the hype would’ve had you believe, cures cancer. Read more... [Strasburg’s absence causes despair in D.C.]

Amar’e Stoudemire and the New York Knicks have completed a five-year contract worth nearly $100 million, Stoudemire’s agent Happy Walters told Yahoo! Sports.

The Knicks and Walters worked out the contractual language, a source said, and Stoudemire finalized the deal in an afternoon meeting with Knicks owner Jim Dolan.

“All done,” Walters said in a text message.

Stoudemire is the first of the major free agents to switch teams. He can’t officially sign the contract until Thursday.

Stoudemire emerged from the meeting with Dolan and Garden officials, and met an assemblage of media with a Knicks cap and bold declaration: “The Knicks are back,” he said.

Stoudemire became the Knicks’ primary power forward target on Friday, and the team is still trying to recruit LeBron James to join him. 

Prior to committing to play for the Knicks, Stoudemire called Denver Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony to tell him he was close to signing, a league source said. While Anthony doesn’t seem to be in a rush to finalize his three-year, $65 million contract extension with the Nuggets, he is expected to sign it at some point this offseason.

Anthony recently told Yahoo! Sports he’ll stay with the Nuggets if he thinks the team can win. He also admitted that passing on the team’s extension offer would be a risk because terms of a new collective bargaining agreement figure to be less favorable for players.

Stoudemire had a whirlwind weekend in New York City, attending a Broadway play, a Yankees game and a Fourth of July party at Dolan’s estate in the Hamptons. 

SECAUCUS, N.J. (AP)—The Washington Nationals got their ace a year ago. Now, they think they’ve found a big-time slugger.

The Nationals selected the much-hyped Bryce Harper, a 17-year-old with prodigious power from the College of Southern Nevada, with the No. 1 overall pick in Monday night’s draft.

“It’s what I’ve wanted since I was 7 years old,” Harper said.

A year after taking similarly hyped right-hander Stephen Strasburg, the Nationals took Harper, who can play catcher but was announced as an outfielder at the draft site at MLB Network studios by commissioner Bud Selig.

Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo envisions Harper as a No. 3-type power hitter with a strong arm in right field.

“We’re going to take the rigor and the pressures of learning the position, the difficult position of catcher, away from him,” Rizzo said, “and really let him concentrate on the offensive part of the game and let his athleticism take over as an outfielder.”

Harper hit .443 with 31 homers and 98 RBIs in his first college season in a wood bat league, after skipping his final two years of high school and getting his GED.

Harper showed solid defensive instincts behind the plate and called pitches much of the time, but his path to the majors will be in the outfield.

“I can get better out there, I think,” Harper said. “Anywhere they need me, I’ll play. I just want to make it and we’ll see what happens when I get there.”