Suddenly, Chicago is the place where long winning streaks go to die.

This time, it was Carmelo Anthony and the New York Knicks going down. Late last month, it was LeBron James and the Miami Heat.

The Chicago Cubs found a severed goat's head at Wrigley Field, and they're treating the cruel reference to a longtime curse as a crime.

Police were called in to investigate after a man stopped the white van he was driving, walked a box to a security entrance on Waveland Avenue and wordlessly put it down, Cubs spokesman Julian Green said. Security workers opened the box, addressed to team owner Tom Ricketts, and discovered the severed head. The team immediately called police.

Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso has responded sarcastically to the qualifying edge currently enjoyed by his teammate Felipe Massa, saying he can't sleep and is losing his hair.

Massa has qualified ahead of Alonso in the past four races — the first two this season and the last two of 2012 — and if he does it again at Sunday's Formula One Chinese Grand Prix it will represent the first time in Alonso's career that he has been out-qualified by a teammate five straight times.

Fourteen-year-old Guan Tianlang is the youngest golfer ever to compete at the Masters.

But the Chinese high school student looked more like a veteran Thursday when he shot a 1-over 73 in his debut at Augusta National.

Chelsea became the first club to qualify for the semi-finals of this season's Europa League on Thursday despite losing 3-2 to Rubin Kazan in the second leg of their quarter-final tie.

The London club go through 5-4 on aggregate after winning 3-1 in last week's first leg and remain on course to win the Europa League a year after triumphing in the Champions League.

South African swimming champion Chad le Clos, who dramatically pipped U.S. legend Michael Phelps to Olympic gold in 2012, is to tell his story in a book, his publisher said Wednesday.

The 20-year-old beat Phelps by five-hundredths of a second in the 200m butterfly at the London games last July.

A Singapore court refused to grant bail to a Lebanese football referee and his two assistants, who were charged with accepting sexual bribes in return for fixing a regional football match from a a gambling-linked international syndicate.

The three referees pleaded not guilty and will next appear in court on April 18, media reports said.

Sebastian Vettel has risked further antagonizing Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber, saying he "doesn't apologize for winning" last month's Malaysian Grand Prix at the Australian's expense.

The pair will be under fierce scrutiny at this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai as they return to action for the first time since Vettel ignored team orders to overtake Webber and win the second race of the season.

When the Formula One season resumes at this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix, the biggest battles will be between sets of warring teammates rather than rival teams.

The division is deepest at Red Bull where — three weeks on from the Malaysian Grand Prix — there is still plenty of ill-feeling between three-time world champion Sebastian Vettel and No.2 driver Mark Webber following the events of Sepang, where the German ignored team orders to stay behind Webber and instead overtook the Australian and claimed the race win.

Real Madrid reached the Champions League semifinals for the third straight season on Tuesday despite losing 3-2 at Galatasaray following a second-half resurgence by the Turkish team.

Madrid needed a double from Cristiano Ronaldo to advance 5-3 on aggregate, but only after conceding three goals in a 16-minute span to raise Galatasaray's hopes of pulling off what would have been a remarkable comeback.