June 2006 Archives

Does anyone out there know the proper ettiquette when it comes to having your face plastered up on the Kiss-Cam at a ballgame or arena?
Is there a way to kiss and don't tell about it?

We missed out on setting the TiVo for today's matchup between Maria Sharapova and Ashley Harkleroad at Wimbledon.
What dopes we are.
Maria won, 6-something, blah, blah, blah...
Here's how the Associated Press photographers covered it so at least we'd have some kind of memory of this spendor in the grass actually taking place. (And we'll check the TV listings for when ESPN2 does its "Day at Wimbledon" highlight show ... they've got to get in a few frames of this one, right?)

Thomas G. Arthur passed away the other day, on June 8 to be exact, just a month short of his 85th birthday.
His name may not be immediately recognized to sports fans of Southern California, but if it wasn't for him, one of the most iconic items sold over the last several decades at Dodger Stadium may never have come about.
It was Arthur who invented the Dodger Dog.

(Lenny Ignelzi/AP)
Neither San Diego Padres right fielder Brian Giles nor a Petco Park fan can come up trying to catch a home run by Seattle Mariners' Richie Sexson in the eighth inning of their game Sunday.

Here's some more of the stuff you may see later on SportsCenter, but look just as cool by the Associated Press photography staff:

How can you not be a fan of Barry Zito , the modern-day equalivant to another former USC pitcher, Bill Lee .
But is the Half-Baked Zito slowly turning into The Garv when it comes to making good with creditors?

Superagent Scott Boras has been called many things by many people.
The devil? Sure, that provokes one image of him by at least a few general managers around major league hardball.

But how about God?

It happened to one of his clients. Or, at least, to a reporter who didn't hear the player correctly, and easily assumed he meant one thing when ... well, have a look at it yourself:

What the name of Charles Atlas do any of us know about Ghana?

The country's population in 2005 was 21,029,853 _ slightly less than the state of Texas (22,859,568) but far fewer rednecks.
It was the first African country to obtain its independence from Britain. Take that, Beckham.
It has major cities named Ho and Tamale. But not Hot Tamale.

Learn more fun facts about this tiny West African nation as several online resources as its squad of kickballers face the U.S. in another put-up-or-shut-up game in the World Freakin' Cup.

Our running commentary from today's U.S.-Ghana contest that started at the crack of dawn -- OK, 6:55 a.m. -- follows:

I emailed a poster from the movie "Nacho Libre" to my brother, because the guy who plays the sidekick to Jack Black (on the right) looked alot like my nephew.
My brother sent the picture back, with a slight alteration, and the note:
"I was looking at the other guy in the photo too. Kinda looks like another family member..."
Yeah, like me.
In face, and body type.
If only I could master Photoshop ...

The Dodgers announced today the list of Hollywood luminaries -- that's what it says in the press release -- who plan to participate (some will actually wear a glove and compete) in the annual "Hollywood Stars" softball game at 5:15 p.m., before Saturday's Dodger game against Pittsburgh at Dodger Stadium.

Talk about setting the bar low. No Rob Lowe or Sean Astin (see above). Not even Tony Danza and his star on the Walk of Fame to brag about.

Pardon my 10th grade Spanish, but that's the charm of "Nacho Libre," which may or may not be the best sports flick of 2006. But at the midway point of this calendar year, why not start throwing a list together, to see where we stand, and where we'll need to improve before the Christmas rush.

The Sports Business Journal, a weekly publication connectioned to the excellent daily must-read, The Sports Business Daily, posed that question and tried to answer it in a story it published in its June 19-25 issue.

Hopefully you can read it via this link. If not, post a comment and we'll find a way to email you a copy.
You can also read it if you sign up for a trial subscription.

Now that we know who Gary Coleman is cheering for, it's obvious that it ain't easy being green, or a kickball fan, if the best you can do is slap on the grease paint and try to do a Blue Man Group cheer for your country.
The Associated Press' photogs came up with these fan shots from the World Freakin' Cup, just in the last day or two. Too good not to show off ...

"I just can't believe I did that, I'm such an idiot," Phil Mickelson told reporters at Winged Foot shortly after a double-bogey on the 18th hole cost him the U.S. Open by one stroke.
San Jose Mercury News columnist Mark Purdy, one of my favorites, could be saying the same thing today.

Take a look at that map of Italy. No wonder they're good at futball. They're about to put a boot up the rear end of the U.S. World Freakin' Cup soccer hopes. We gotta protect Reggio di Calabria from doing some damage to our spastic isthmus of Mississippi.

Somehow I woke up in time to actually do another live commentary of today's contest, as a follow up to Monday's U.S.-Czech mess.
We'll put the frozen pizza in the oven and have it ready to burn by about 1:30 this afternoon.

Alexi Lalas (right) and Eric Wynalda (left) -- not Dave O'Brien nor Marcelo Balboa -- are the most important talking heads to listen to these days when the subject matter is the U.S. national soccer team.

Lalas' red hair was afire, Wynalda was almost pale white and both were pretty blue after they watched the Americans drop a 3-0 decision to the Czech Republic in the World Cup opener last Monday.
Given a few days to recapture their emotions, they offered up some more observations in the hours before the next U.S. game against powerful Italy (Saturday, 11:55 a.m., ABC):

Get out to the Special Olympics Southern California Summer Games and support the athletes this weekend at the annual site, the Long Beach State campus. There will be 1,500 Special Olympic athletes performing and 3,000 volunteers for the event that starts Friday with the Opening Ceremonies from 7-9 p.m. and ends with Sunday's Closing Ceremonies at 2 p.m.
More info: www.sosc.org.

Not too late to scrounge up a present for Dad by Father's Day (yes, it's this Sunday, you goof). Not with the Internet at your disposal. Not with a credit card and FedEx.
Pick, click, and have it delivered ASAP. Some fast-fix suggestions:

Susan Stratton, familiar to those who've watched Lakers games over the years as the producer/director back in the truck who Chick Hearn used to converse with over his live mike, has been relieved of her duties after 29 years doing the games for KCAL-Channel 9.
More on this in Thursday's paper, and Friday's media column

Before it's too late and they box this thing up for good, check out the latest eBay.com item: A replica of the helmet that Ben Roethlisberger wore while he was in his motorcycle crash Monday.

Grab your glove, share the love.
Wednesday could be the first day of your major league baseball career.

ESPN's Jeremy Schaap just rattled this off on the World Cup preview show this morning:
It's estimated that 90 million people watched Super Bowl XL.
For the most recent NBA Finals, about 25 million.
For the 2005 World Series, about 30 million.
Meanwhile, it's estimated that more than 1.3 billion watched the 2002 World Cup final between Germany and Brazil.

We estimate that half of those watching Monday's U.S.'s gut-Czech loss turned the TV off midway through the second half.

And we turn to these notes, quotes and press releases that have been thrown our way over the last couple of days about the World Freakin' Cup:

It's not ironic that one of the Major League Soccer teams is now owned by Red Bull. How else would anyone stay awake for one of these kickball things?

This morning, we'll try to keep up with this U.S. vs. ... whoever they're playing in the first game of the World Freakin' Cup.

Here's a running notebook of how the morning went:

Guy at the 7-Eleven counter ahead of me: "Why are so many people in line buying stuff? Is there some big game on?"
7-Eleven cashier named Gus: "Maybe the World Cup?"

Guy: "Did you hear Mexico beat the crap out of Iran this morning?"
Cashier: "Yup, we watched it here. I think it was 3-1 Mexico."

So that's a crap kicking? Wasn't that the score of one of the Dodgers' wins over the Rockies over the weekend?

After witnessing an epic battle where the eight-seeded and unheralded team of Aaron Wachtfogel and Hans Stolfus stunned top-seeded Phil "The Beast" Dalhausser and Todd Rogers at the AVP's Hermosa Beach Open on Saturday afternoon, we've got this urge for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich -- with plenty of sand.

David Schwartz, the info-man extraordinaire for the Gameshow Network (GSN), has a heads-up about a new book called "Now Batting Number ...: The Mystique, Superstition, and Lore of Baseball's Uniform Numbers" by Jack Looney and Jack Tremmel, about the history of baseball uniform numbers.

And what interested Schwartz most ...

Today, I feel small. Eddie Gaedel-kinda small.
Or, in other words, like a 45 spinning in a 78 world.
And there's about 4 billion people who don't even understand what that means anymore.
When you hit semi-important birthdays -- for me, it's 45 today -- you pause to reflect on where you've been and where you're going. You know you should be at the gym, but then something like plastic surgery sounds so much better.

Until you look at Joan Rivers, who also shares this birthday, and know that's not the way to go. (Picture withheld here for obvious reasons).

Boz Scaggs, Jerry Stiller, Barbara Bush, Keenan Ivory Wayans and Ursula Buchfellner share the day with me today. (Ursula? Whip out your Oct. 1979 issue of Playboy, then ask again later.)

Not exactly a murders' row of talent there (Frank Lloyd Wright has the day, too, but he's busy designing stuff).

So as a way to put things into context, here's my Top 10 athletes who also have June 8 as their birthday. Some are older than 45, some younger. Some long gone. It was a fun way to spend the morning. Do the same when your day rolls around, just to pretend on where you'd rank on the list if you had a do-over:

Don’t take it as a bad omen that today is the day of ... you know ...
The Beast.
Book of Revelation, the anti-Christ ...
Steve Garvey, ol' No. 6 ...

On this date 30 years - June 4, 1976 - a local KLAC-AM radio reporter, Paul Olden, (pictured), fetching sound-bites for the legendary Jim Healy, asked Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda what he thought of Dave Kingman's performance _ a three home-run game in an 11-0 Cubs' victory at Dodger Stadium.

Lasorda went ballistic. He started to swear and ...

Hold on. Check that date again ... And check that score ... Was Lasorda even the manager then?

WRONG...

Say what?

Poker isn't a sport, so stop pretending. You'd be hard pressed to convince anyone at ESPN of that these days (my apologies to my pal, Norman Chad, who says they can call it whatever they want as long as the checks clear). ESPN is also the network trying to pass off dominos, darts, paintball and the Spelling Bee as legit, while backing away from the NHL.

GSN - otherwise known as the Game Show Network - is where the real cards are dealt for our taste. We don't play, by the way. But we'll watch it now and then, if the choice is that or the WNBA.
We have our TiVo set for Monday, which is Opening Day in GSN land for the card games.

Mike Tollin, the producer for the ESPN-delivered "Bonds on Bonds" documentary series, said today that the series has indeed ended -- and it's Barry's fault.

For Carson Palmer, the former USC quarterback and budding NFL star in Cincinnati, the word of the day is "cornhole."
Can you use it in a sentence?
What's the origin?
Are you sure you want to go there?