April 2007 Archives

The Ski Channel, a cable television network linked to video-on-demand, the internet, mobile phones and whatever new media that might crop up, is the latest project in the works by Steve Bellamy, the founder and former president of The Tennis Channel.
Bellamy's Pacific Palisades-based company, Atonal Sports and Entertainment, plan to launch The Ski Channel in early 2008, starting with an agreement that will have it part of Time Warner Cable systems.
The content will go beyond what's just for skiiers -- try snowboarding, hiking, biking, camping, climbing, cross country skiing, rock climbing, backpacking, kayaking, caving ... what else is there? Pro mountain sports events will be included in the programming, with a majority of it related to entertainment, features, real estate, travel, equipment, instructions and news.
“The wide variety of subject matter on The Ski Channel requires an ‘on demand’ platform,” said Bellamy in a statement. “The mountain world is an industry with over 30 million enthusiasts, 500 resorts, 60 million annual visits and $10 billion of yearly resort and travel spending. Its large, upscale audience will be a great match with cable television and its content advancements like VOD."
National Ski Area Association president Michael Berry added: “Skiing, snowboarding and mountain activities are certainly some of the best family activities and bonding experiences. Our industry is hungry for a national television destination and our enthusiasts will be desirous for this type of network. Our goal is to grow participation and like The Tennis Channel infused significant growth into tennis, The Ski Channel will do the same for mountain activities. We are enthused to welcome The Ski Channel to our industry, and we will use every resource to help insure their success.”
If the Ski Channel , which already has its website up and running, has any of the success as the Tennis Channel that Bellamy headed for seven years, it's got huge upside. Bellamy's Atonal Sports & Entertainment owns tennis and golf facilities including Palisades Tennis Center, Westwood Tennis Center, Van Nuys Tennis Center, and the LA Golf Academy. Atonal’s media businesses include Atonal Films and Television, Palisades Studios, and The Ski Channel.

Diary of a 2007 NFL Draft TV watcher, knowing full well there's no personal investment in who goes where, what local team is on the clock, or whatever else happens in the world on this day:

7:37 a.m.: Shouldn't I be carb loading, or Pilates stretching, or lighting up a cigar to warm up for this thing that starts in about an hour and a half? I flip on the TV, and already, there's Chris Berman, busting into the morning's ESPN "SportsCenter," transfixed on what kind of pick Ohio State receiver Teddy Ginn Jr. could be. In mid-sentence: "... Ginn has that sort of speed and return ability. His work as a receiver wouldn't put him the second or third or fourth most polished receiver, but as far as a return ace that could (snaps his fingers) change a game on a dime, Ted Ginn. So who says, I need one of those, where does he go in the first round, will be extremely interesting to me, so ... (the camera pans back to where Berman is on the set, and Mel Kiper, Chris Mortensen, Keyshawn Johnson and Steve Young are sitting there twiddling their thumbs, waiting for him to shut up) ... it's so interesting that we're going to do it for about 10 and a half hours which starts our preview at 11 a.m. eastern ... so that's the scene from Radio City Music Hall."
Ginn, in the first round? Maybe the first day. Maybe. Maybe.
Yes, it's the first indication that, by the time night falls, I may be hemorrhaging in the corner of the room somewhere. Unless ESPN suddenly adds Chris McKendry to the mix.

We forge onward ...

This morning, despite our better judgment, we've committed to go blogging live while watching the NFL Draft, switching back and forth from ESPN and the NFL Network coverage, while attempting to go about our day's usual amount of stupid errands, food runs, bathroom breaks and any other diversions we hope come up in the process of killing a day.
Pregame at 8 a.m. Estimated finish, about 9 p.m. They don't train you for this kinda junk in journalism school. But then again, they shouldn't have to.
The first quiz we'll put up for you to consider:
When it comes time for Brady Quinn to have his name tossed around as a potential pick -- and that could come as early as 9:01 a.m. when the Raiders are on the clock and the guessing game begins -- what will Chris Berman's first non-clever reference be for the Notre Dame quarterback?
a) The Mighty Quinn (2-1 odds)
b) A Very Brady Quinn (3-1 odds)
c) Here's the story of a man named Brady Quinn (1-2 odds)
d) Dr. Quinn, Medicine Quarterback (5-1 odds)
e) Quinn the Eskimo (6-1 odds)
f) He's in a No-Quinn situation (4-1 odds)
g) Quinny The Pooh (8-1 odds)
h) Any other assinine reference (even money)
All bets are off after Quinn's been picked. We suspect he'll be sitting in that green room a long time of the Cleveland Browns don't make him the No. 3 overall pick.

By PAUL ELIAS
Associated Press Writer
BURLINGAME -- Victor Conte, the Johnny Appleseed of designer steroids, is back in business.
Witness the new $190,000 Bentley parked outside the building that once housed the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, where federal agents uncovered a massive steroids ring and sparked professional sports’ highest-profile drug scandal.
Since leaving prison little more than a year ago, Conte and his 22-year-old daughter have revived a nutritional supplements business he launched two decades ago called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning — SNAC for short.
They’re mainly hawking a zinc- and magnesium-based powder called ZMA that’s a staple for serious weightlifters who use it to repair damaged tissue and to sleep better. It’s legal and available through about two dozen distributors.
Conte never has been at a loss for words, especially when it comes to self promotion.
“I’m feeling much better and the passion has come back,” he says. “Things are going well.”
Conte said sales have increased 20 percent in the last year and that SNAC rings up about $300,000 a month.
Many of his best customers have been professional athletes, he says, including Barry Bonds, still the prime target of the federal investigators who sent Conte to jail for four months for illegal steroids distribution.
Bonds declined interview requests for this story while the San Francisco Giants were at Dodger Stadium earlier this week.

Forty-one years after he retired from baseball, Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax was the final player chosen in the draft to stock the six teams for the inaugural season of the Israel Baseball League.
Koufax, 71, was picked by the Modi’in Miracle in the draft conducted by former major league general manager Dan Duquette, who heads baseball operations for the league.
“His selection is a tribute to the esteem with which he is held by everyone associated with this league,” former big leaguer Art Shamsky, who will manage the Miracle, told the Associated Press. “It’s been 41 years between starts for him. If he’s rested and ready to take the mound again, we want him on our team.”
In the 1965 World Series, Koufax wouldn’t pitch Game 1 for the Dodgers because he wanted to observe the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.
The first pick in the draft was infielder Aaron Levin, 21, from San
Luis Obispo, who played for Cuesta Community College, and who was also selected by Modi’in.
No news about any other draft picks, since the league's official website says the draft wasn't scheduled to take place until Sunday. The Wikipedia entry on the league noted that a tryout took place on April 15 at Calabasas High.
The league begins play June 24 with the six teams playing a 45-game schedule. Players from nine nations were drafted, and about a dozen of the 120 players in the league are expected to be Israeli citizens.
We have confirmed that Koufax is Jewish, by his induction into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

MLB Credits Hank Aaron With 50 Lost Home Runs

According to commissioner Bud Selig, a committee of sports journalists and baseball historians was set up during the off-season and determined:
Aaron deserved more home runs based on the fact in 1958, home runs hit during both the first week of spring training and those hit in pre-game batting practice during away games in the third week of August could be added.
As well as home runs hit during the 1971 All-Star Game.
As well as any hit during the TV show "Home Run Derby."
As well as the rule in the second half of the 1962 season when balls that bounced over the outfield fence should have been counted as home runs, and foul balls that were hit behind the batter but cleared the netting intended to protect fans seated behind home plate were also home runs. That being the case, league scorekeepers now say Aaron had his best year in 1962, hitting 65 home runs—20 more than originally thought.

The NFL Draft doesn't have to dominate your TV viewing weekend. But somehow it will suck you in. As a follow up to our Daily News media column and notebook about the draft, we expand to include more stuff that you can't get enough of:

==Keyshawn Johnson, the Carolina Panthers' receiver going into his 12th NFL season, will join the ESPN set in New York for the draft, as we explained in today's Daily News story. He says if the mood strike him, he may even lobby his team to take USC receiver Dwayne Jarrett when the Panthers' first-round choice comes up at No. 14. Although Johnson insists another Trojan receiver, Steve Smith out of Taft High, may be more mature and a better pick than Jarrett, who skipped his senior year to come out, Johnson isn’t against mentoring someone from his alma mater.
“After watching him workout at pro day and on film, I’d have to go with Steve Smith over Jarrett,” said Johnson. “I’m not enamored with a younger guy like Jarrett. I think he should have stayed in school. The draft is on the ability to perform right now. Smith has done everything the right way. Jarrett doesn’t know what the NFL is all about. He thinks he has it all figured out like Mike Williams did. Had he stayed one more year he could have been more than just a fourth-rated receiver and having people question his ability to where he’d be a clear-cut graduate and go on to earn a lot more money.
“That said, Jarrett does have some upside. I wouldn’t mind pushing the Panthers to take him at No. 14. Maybe I could help him mature.”
Johnson, a three-time Pro Bowl selection, has 10,571 yards receiving and 64 touchdowns in his career, tied for 15th on the all-time NFL list with Henry Ellard with 814 receptions. He could easily move into the top 10 with a 50-catch year, and then set his sights on 1,000 career catches. But at 35 and wanting to do more with his business ventures, Johnson hasn't made any commitments past this coming year.
"I'll take it one step at a time," said Johnson, who has yet to renew his contract to do a weekly radio show for Sirius Satellite. "I want to get this out of the way and get my career out of the way before I make any kind of decisions. A media job is not something I think I need to do, but it would keep me close to the game and I'd want to take it seriously as a full-time thing.
"There are some good milestones coming up, but at my age, I'll continue to play and beyond this year it's one step at a time. I'll take my time to evaluate where I'm at and not rule anything out."

We got more, read on ...

Anyone who loves a great baseball roadie has to be jealous of what Matt Meyers and Evan Markfield are up to.
A CSTV.com series called "Going Yard," where Meyers and Markfied travel the country covering the culture of college baseball, continue a loop through Southern California this week before heading out.
Friday, they're planning to attend the Arizona-UCLA contest, followed by Saturday's UC Santa Barbara-Cal State Northridge game and then Sunday's UC Davis-UC Irvine game.
Tuesday, they were at the Cal State Fullerton-USC game, where the late Rod Dedeaux's sons, Justin and Terry, gave them a tour of the park and Trojans Baseball Hall of Fame. Wednesday, they detoured out to watch the Crespi-St. Francis high school game, so that they could see Mike Scioscia's kid, Matt, and Barry Bonds' kid, Nikolai (pictured here), play for the Celts. Thursday, it was an interview with USC catcher/pitcher Robert Stock, the former Agoura High standout who bypassed his senior year of high school to attend college earlier.
Meyers and Markfield started their journey on April 1 and end it at the College World Series in Omaha, Neb., in June. They plan to cover about 7,000 miles and more than 65 games with video streaming and blogging.

Jockey Garrett Gomez, the country’s leading rider by total purse earnings last year, apparently isn't such a big-shot in his own neighborhood.
The 5-foot tall Gomez lost his bid to build a house that would have been 24-feet tall.
By a 3-2 vote this week, the Duarte city council denied permission for Gomez to build the addition to his home because it exceeds his neighborhood’s height limit by 6 feet. The vote affirmed the Planning Commission’s refusal to grant a waiver.
Gomez, his wife and their two children currently live in a 2,250-square- foot, one-story, two-bedroom
home on 1.04 acres. He wanted to level the home and build a 4,061-square-foot residence with a maximum height of just under 24 feet. The new home would have had four bedrooms, four baths, dining room, family room, living room, kitchen, nook, pantry, office, gallery, foyer, media/loft room, wet bar, children’s study room,
laundry room and a two-car garage.
Sounds reasonable.
Except Gomez’s neighbors opposed theproposal, saying the house would block views, rob neighbors of privacy and set a bad precedent.
“There are better ways to configure this house on your property,” councilwoman Margaret Finlay said, suggesting Gomez build a single-story rather than a two-story home.
“We have codes and restrictions so that what is built blends with all that’s already there,” mayor Lois Gaston said.
The jockey’s wife, Pamela Gomez, told the Pasadena Star News she was too upset by the vote to comment.
“It’s unfortunate people let their emotions get the better of them,” the couple’s lawyer Bruce E. Schwartz said.

A National Public Radio "Morning Edition" story this week jumps on the recently discovered audio tapes from Vin Scully's call of Sandy Koufax's 1962 no-hitter for the Dodgers against the New York Mets. Jim Governale, a broadcaster at Talk Radio KKLA, found the reel-to-reel tape in 1990 when his grandfather died. It has been made by his uncle.
A new twist on that story: Dodgers team historian Mark Langill reports that Barry Resnick of Orange found a tape with the last out and post-game show of Koufax's third no-hitter in Philadelphia in 1964.
"He was an 11-year-old kid and at the time he screamed “HE DID IT!!!!” after the final out – a strikeout.," said Langill. "Barry was disappointed his voice is on the recording, but I told him that makes the moment. He lives not far from Governale and has his original reel-to-reel recorder which looks like it just came out of the box. He brought the machine to the stadium, played the reel and it sounded great. Jim was there, too, and we listened in one of the suites. The fan had read about Jim’s story and said, 'Hey, I’ve got one of those no-hitters, too.' So like Johnny Vander Meer, there were suddenly two no-hitters in one week."
For the record, the headline written on the box that Governale has of the 1962 no-hitter wasn't a "perfecto" ... the only perfect game of the four no-hitters that Koufax threw came in 1965 against Chicago Cubs, which Scully had an engineer record the final inning for posterity's sake. That's the one many Dodgers fans have been lucky enough to hear.

The FBI has offered a $5,000 reward for help finding whoever mailed dozens of threatening letters - including some containing a potentially harmful insecticide - complaining about ESPN and ABC coverage of college cheerleaders and pro female tennis and basketball athletes, the Associated Press has reported.
The writer or writers complained that ESPN and ABC crews have exploited cheerleaders, WNBA players and WTA Tour players through certain camera angles -- even though those angles were rarely shown on the air.
The FBI released excerpts of two letters in the hope of identifying who sent them.
"For the past 6-7 years, ESPN and its nationwide networks have exploited cheer/dance teams all across the country. They do this by parking their TV cameras on these women for their own personal entertainment," an excerpt from one letter said.
"Pigs park their cameras on us close up, front view, dozens of times each game, yet rarely ever show on TV in this manner," another excerpt read.
Investigators believe the author "may be directly or indirectly involved in some element of cheerleading and/or the television production/coverage aspect of collegiate athletics," according to an FBI statement.
A spokesman for ESPN said the network is cooperating with authorities but could not give details about the investigation.

The news of the traffic accident that led to the death of Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Halberstam had a strange deja vu affect on me as I read about what happened Tuesday.
A graduate journalism student at Cal was taking Halberstam to an interview he had scheduled with Hall of Fame quarterback Y.A. Tittle. Halberstam was working on another book called, "The Game," about the 1958 NFL championship between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants, in what would be the 50th anniversary of that contest. Halberstam was at the Berkeley campus giving a talk to a journalism class about how to turn reporting into a work of history. A story and photo of the accident are at this link from the San Mateo Daily Journal.
It caused a flashback for me to a time when I was a USC journalism student assigned to host Halberstam during a visit he made to the campus. For our journalism class, we were assigned to do stories on the journalists that we were to host for a symposium that the school was conducting on coverage of the war, and Halberstam was about as good as they come on that stage. I gladly volunteered to do a paper about his life. Here was someone who had such a decorated career covering the war and other political issues, but he always had a love for sports stories and how they stood in the big picture.
I don't remember exactly why or how this happened, but I was driving Halberstam somewhere, probably to his hotel after the event and remember thinking as we were in the car: What if something happened?
I was given the opportunity to have a more indepth discussion about his career when he was in L.A. in Feb. 1999 to promote his book about Michael Jordan. I brought along a copy of that Jordan book, "Playing for Keeps," along with my very beat-up copy of the 1981 "Breaks of the Game" (about the '77 Portland Trail Blazers, which to me was a perfect example of how to write a sports book) and a copy of the 700-plus page book, "The Children," that he wrote in 1998 about the Civil Rights movements in the early '60s that he covered. He seemed amused to see those three books as part of my collection. I still intended to buy and read "Best and the Brightest," but hadn't got around to it yet. It was just an amazing experience to be in his presence and listen to his stories. I wish I had a tape recorder back then to capture it all.
Of all the autographed books I've been lucky enough to have on myself, and obtained not just from some meet-and-greet signing at a book store, these three remain a treasure.

By JIM ELLIS
Associated Press Writer
No hymnals. No pews. No steeple. No stained glass windows. And no women.
The Church For Men flips around the look and feel of worship and its leader says that's a good thing — guys are "bored stiff" in many churches today.
"We try to make it interesting for them. We meet in a gym and we talk about issues that mess men up," said 46-year-old Mike Ellis, the church's founder.
The Church For Men meets one Saturday evening a month, drawing about 70 guys dressed in everything but straight-laced shirts and neckties. The service features a rock band, a shot clock to time the preacher's message and a one-hour in-and-out guarantee.
Maybe to some of these guys, the only church reference they had was to the Washington Nationals outfielder, Ryan Church.
Ellis' church is part of a national movement to reverse a long-standing problem. Studies show that men are less likely than women to show up on Sunday mornings, and now churches around the country are reaching out to men, teaching theology with a twist of testosterone in the presentation.
One study found that the average U.S. adult church congregation is 61 percent female, said David Murrow, author of "Why Men Hate Going To Church." The research shows women are more likely to attend church, Sunday school and small church groups.
"Going to church is perceived as womanly behavior," said Murrow, who is based in Anchorage, Alaska, and travels the country lecturing about the issue. "We don't go to church for the same reason we don't wear pink."
Communication skills, public forms of affection, such as hugs and hand holding, and other "soft skills" make many men feel uncomfortable in church, Murrow said.
And long church services also cause men to leave the fold, said Ellis, who first got the idea for a man-only church six years ago. "I have the attention span of a flea," he said.
To that end, followers at Church For Men meet on a basketball court, a large scoreboard with a time clock ensures the preacher's message is delivered in 15 minutes, and the same rock band that opened for Bad Company and the Georgia Satellites a month ago bangs out a three-song set.

There are so many ways are out there to improve the planet that currently supports our bad habits, and starting with golf course management is one way a sportsman (and sportswoman) can be conscious about how his or her actions affect others.
This isn't just about replacing divots. It starts at the tee box.
We've been using the corn-manufactored tees made by EcoGolf, an Indiana-based company that sells its product to thousands of golf courses around the country. The company notes on its website that there are more than 2 billion golf tees used in the U.S. each year. By mixing in a corn tee, you're not just saving millions of trees that are cut down to produce the wood tees, but these are biodegradable, reduce the litter around the tee box and are in many ways stronger and last longer than the traditional wood tees.
Save the environment. It's what you play on.
More info about EcoTees: (888) 326-3003 or visit the site at www.ecogolf.com.

An artists rendition of the new ballpark in Washington D.C.

By JOSEPH WHITE
Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Concrete gray and dirt brown are the overwhelming colors at the construction site of the Washington Nationals ballpark. For a bit of contrast, there are eight red and black cranes towering above the busy scene near the banks of the polluted Anacostia River.
Yet, one year before the first pitch is thrown, project manager Mac Naeemi stands on the concourse in his hard hat and beams with pride at the mention of another color: green.
“I can’t explain the feeling I have,” Naeemi says. “It is magnificent. We come to work with passion. This is the first baseball park that is going to be green.”
Take a short trip along I-95 to the north — in a hybrid car, perhaps — and one finds Philadelphia Eagles owner Christina Lurie, (pictured here), who announced last week that the team will reimburse employees who buy their energy from windmills. The Eagles are already one of the most environmentally friendly teams in pro sports, and
they say their “Go Green” program has eliminated some 6.4 million pounds of greenhouse gases and recycled nearly 150 tons of paper, cardboard and beverage containers — not to mention beer bottles emptied by those boisterous Philly fans — since it was launched in 2003.
“It’s definitely become a passion,” Lurie told The Associated Press. “I have children, and I worry about the planet. Is our world going to exist in 50 years? What kind of a world is it going to be?”
It will be a world with Super Bowl woods, if Jack Groh has anything to do with it. Next month, the NFL is planting 500 native trees to help reclaim the Dinner Key Spoil Islands near Miami, part of the league’s effort to negate the 1 million pounds of carbon dioxide it spewed into the atmosphere by putting on this year’s Super Bowl.
“If you go out there in two or three years, instead of finding stinking, rotting landfills, you’re going to find this beautiful chain of islands,” said Groh, director of the league’s environmental program. “So, could you go out there and wander among the NFL trees? Yeah, you could. We’ve got other projects, but that’s going to be one of the crowning jewels.”
Some 600 solar panels are being installed at AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. The Dodgers' single-A farm team, the Great Lakes Loons, already beat them to it, with 168 panels erected in February to power the scoreboard at their minor league park in Midland, Mich.
SafeCo Field in Seattle recycles about 97 percent of the plastic beer, water and soda bottles it sells and this year started a food waste recycling program that keeps even more trash out of landfills. The Indy Racing League’s
IndyCar Series will race this season on 100 percent ethanol.
Green long has been the color of sports because of the absurd amounts of money involved. Sports, though,
can be a very wasteful endeavor, from the millions of gallons of water used to keep golf courses green and ski resorts wrapped in artificial snow to the thousands of miles teams fly on road trips. Or the mounds of paper used to produce media guides, press releases and box scores. Or the fertilizers that keep fields green while potentially
contaminating groundwater.
But a new shade of green rapidly is making its mark in the sporting world as teams, leagues and stadium-owning municipalities answer the call to make a dent in the fight against global warming.

Read on, please ...

The latest news trickling out about rapper Lil' Romeo saying he's committed to playing for USC's basketball team once his days at Beverly Hills High are kinda sketchy at this point.
Mostly because Romeo and his people don't know the difference between saying you're doing something and actually signing the paperwork.
According to those who represent Romeo Miller, the 17-year-old is in. Dave Lindsay, a spokesman for his online label UrbanDigital Records, told the Associated Press on Friday that it's done.
According to USC, it ain't necessarily so.
USC spokesman Dave Tuttle said he could neither confirm or deny the rumor because the school hasn't received a signed letter of intent.
“Basketball has run in the family,” Lindsay said, noting the rapper’s father, hip-hop mogul Master P, had tryouts with two NBA teams in the 1990s.
“In the future, I want to be an NBA player. That’s my goal,” Lil’ Romeo told The Associated Press in a 2003 interview.
At the time he was 14 and just 5-foot-6. He acknowledged then that his goal might go unrealized if he didn’t add another 12 inches of height. He’s 17 now and 6-1, a little more than halfway toward that goal.
At the website AllHipHop.com, Miller is described as a 5-foot-11 guard who has "officially signed" with USC and "according to representatives for Romeo, he is is the first nationally known active Hip-Hop star to receive a full athletic scholarship."
Again, not necessarily so.
So what? So let's get things straight.
In addition, FoxSports.com reports that Romeo's commitment has also opened the door for Demar Derozan and Angelo Johnson, a pair of Scout.com's Top 100 players in the Class of 2008, to also go to USC. Another report has Romeo's brother Vercy Miller (also known as Young V) also signing at USC.
Another blog quotes Romeo's father, Master P, as saying: "USC is a great school and I felt like he made a great decision ... it's just great for [Romeo]."
And this website proports to have the killer Romeo recruiting video.

They are the Riptide, Los Angeles' proud entry into the Major League Lacrosse, the ball-and-stick activity that calls itself the "fastest sport on two feet." One of the other things they're apparently fast at is trying to extract cash from your wallet.
If you're just dying to see what the Riptide-itis is all about, the team announced today its individual ticket prices for the 2007 season, which begins on the road but finally ends up at one of the side venues at the Home Depot Center in Carson (not the main field; they need that for ... soccer?) on May 27 against something called the New Jersey Pride at 7 p.m..
Here's how the prices break down for each of the six home games:
VIP Center Sideline: $50
Center Sideline: $35
Reserved: $22
General Admission: $18
These are individual game prices, not season-long prices? Apparently so, because that VIP Center Sideline seat goes for $270 (a savings of $30 over six individual tickets), but it includes passes to the beer garden and a private event with the coaches and players.
This is a squad of basket-wackers coming off a 6-6 season, third-place finish in the Western Conference and no playoff appearance?
Hmmmmm. Let's think about this proposition.
Uh....
Pass.
For that kinda cash, we'd rather invest in the Season 2 and 3 boxed DVD set of that old TV show, "Riptide," watching Perry King and Joe Penny run around the Redondo Beach King Harbor with guns drawn. (Of course, we already have Season 1, but we're ready for more jellyfish hijinx).
We've made it already pretty clear that you couldn't pay us to attend one of these lacrosse things. Now, to actually see what they're charging for Year 2 gives us a better understanding of where this sport will go as a professional venture.
Right through the wickets. And we're sure that isn't even a term the snobby little prep kids use while playing it.
Here's a better (and free) idea: The team is having a contest to name its mascot (that creepy shark-thing pictured here). The top 10 ideas will be picked by the team staff and posted on the site. Whatever garnishes the most online votes by the May 18 deadline will win. And if the people pick the the name you came up with, the team will give you 10 tickets for you and your friends to the Riptide’s home opener, plus a prize pack that includes 2007 season seats, a Riptide T-shirt, and a Riptide lacrosse mini-stick (retail value: $350).
Here's our list of suggestions, just off the top of our head:
=Squidbreath
=Cesspool
=Nifong
=Rosenhaus
=Hasselhoff
=Osama chum Laden
=Duke Stripper
=Unnecessary Roughness
=LAXative
=Gait bait
=Skull fracture
Click on this link to see more about the contest.
For more info or inquiries on how you're supposed to afford these prices, to go www.lariptide.com or call (866) 4-LAX-TIX. They say they have some "mini-plans" available to fit your budget. How much more "mini" can a six-game home schedule be?

Adding to the notes, quotes and antecotes gleaned from various sources through the week, spinning off from today's Daily News media column and notebook, and now into your lap:

ESPN's Bill Walton riffs further on:
==The Lakers chances against Phoenix: "It's a very difficult task. Phoenix is a great team, one of the five that have a realistic chance to win it all. I'm taking Phoenix to win the title. I voted Amare Stoudamire on the All-NBA team, and you've got the MVP with Steve Nash. The Suns have two great lockdown defenders and a great coach. The Lakers fans may say, 'we took 'em to seven games last year,' but that was without Stoudamire. The best job I've seen anyone do lately with the Suns was how San Antonio handled them recently. Bruce Bowen shut down Nash, and Tony Parker torched him on the other end. Phoenix played awful and San Antonio barely won. You beat Phoenix by playing attacking, assertive basketball. You won't win by backing in and hoping the other team plays poorly. The Lakers, like the rest of the league, can learn so much about basketball by watching how Nash operates with the Suns."
==The chances his son, Luke, will stay with the Lakers: "I'm a proud dad, and he's his own man. I can't speak for him and I don't make his decisions. I can only say from my own experience that he's in an unbelieveable great situation with the Lakers. To play for this franchise is so incredible in the big picture. To be in Southern California, playing for Phil Jackson, under this umbrella of the Lakers' mystique ... it's hard to beat."
==What may have possessed Luke, pictured far left in Sunday's game against Seatle, to cut his hair like Britney Spears: "In our house, we live by the Bob Dylan creed: You grow it out on the outside or else it'll grow on the inside and scramble your brain waves. I get my hair cut regularily so that it matches the pace which is falling out on its own. It stopped being red long ago. I'd prefer to talk about backdoor cuts, outlet passes and why Commissioner Stern can't convince Mrs. Nash to have more children, or at least allow cloning."
==Where the Dallas Mavericks fit into the championship race: "They have an inside track, but championships are won by teams that dominate the paint. The All-Star games, the shoe endorsements ... they are all won by the pretty boys on the perimeter. Championships are won by Shaq and Hakeen and Jordan charging into the paint. That's where Stoudamire can assert himself. Shaq remains a force. In the modern era of basketball that can be defined for our purposes as everything since Jordan, every championship has been decided by Shaq in one form or another. The ones he didnt win, you had to go through him to win 'em. That was the same way with Wilt Chamberlain. They're just in an other area of great players."

Read on, if you must ...

Be afraid, Russel Martin. Be really, really, really, super, really afraid.
And be sure to wear a cup.
In fact, next time you go out to talk about pitch selection with Brad Penny, ask the most important question: When is it a good idea to get a restraining order from Alyssa Milano?
We offer the warning only because we gleen new information from the appropriatedly named new blog called "Touch 'Em All" on MLB.com by the 34-year-old actress who, during her dating lifespan, has perhaps touched more Major League Baseball players than a used rosin bag.
You've heard of "Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon?" In every major league clubhouse, there's probably a one degree to Alyssa Milano. And we're not even including a Tony Danza appearance at the Dodgers' annual Hollywood Stars night.
In Alyssa's latest missive posted Monday, she claims Martin, the Dodgers very hot hitting catcher, is "my favorite present-day Dodger."
OK, she also says Nomar Garciaparra is "a close second ... despite his obsessive compulsive batter box habits that make me anxious." She then includes a photo she took of Nomar, perhaps from just a few feet away, at last year's All-Star game.
Mia, you can be concerned, too. Maybe it's best to change the locks on the door. And if she ever applies for a nanny job, you know who's the boss.
Alyssa's charmed opinions on this venue which she claims isn't to draw publicity include saying that Dodgers new left fielder Luis Gonzalez "throws like a girl" -- did she see Monday's game in Arizona? -- Dodger tofu dogs chased down by a diet soda "gives me the burps for days," and Mark McGwire deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
We're guessing she's using all this material to someday campaign for the role of Annie Savoy in the remake of "Bull Durham."
For those who aren't aware of such things, the girl we can't help but call Samantha Micelli now living in West Hills also has a new line of clothing offered in MLB gift shops as well as online called "touched." (with that little TM sign). It's stuff that anyone her age shouldn't be caught wearing, including this Fench Terry Hood outfit she's modeling.
Alyssa, of course, has been romantically linked to MLBers such as Penny (who she was supposedly engaged to; Penny is now reportedly hanging with Eliza Dushku), Barry Zito and Carl Pavano -- as well as the NFL's Matt Leinart . There are also many bloggers who speculate how her relationship with them causes their stats to rise and fall.
She was once quoted as saying: "I feel a lot healthier when I'm having sex. Physically. I feel all these jitters when I wake up in the morning. Just energy jitters. I take vitamins, I work out every day. When I'm having sex, I don't have that."
Hear that, Russell? Keep the shin guards near by.

Further evidence that it's Keith Olbermann's world and we're lucky to have gravity keeping us grounded in it, NBC Sports announced today that the well-versed brilliant sports mind who has recently ventured successfully into Bill O'Reilly bashing disguised as political commentary will infiltrate the "Football Night In America" studio show this fall, sharing a desk with fellow egos Bob Costas, Cris Collinsworth, Jerome Bettis, Tiki Barber ... who else are we forgetting? ... Peter King? ... so that his opinions about all that goes on in the NFL will allow us all to sleep better before the work week begins.
Since the Angels-Red Sox broadcast Monday morning on 710-AM prevented Los Angeles listeners from hearing Olbermann's explanation of how this all went down on the ESPN Radio syndicated Dan Patrick show, KO said in a media conference call earlier Monday that it was a matter of him renewing his NBC News contract to continue his MSNBC "Countdown" show that led Jeff Zucker, the president and CEO of NBC Universal, to suggest to NBC Sports czar Dick Ebersol that throwing Olbermann a sports bone might be a good thing to add to the fine print.
Since the thought was not to make Olbermann travel to take away from his nighly MSNBC show, or his hour-long daily visits with Patrick, the weekend desk job based in New York seemed to be the best fit, said Ebersol.
"It wasn't a question of whether or not he was knowledgeable about football," said Ebersol, "but, most importantly to me, the studio world of sports has had very few wildly successful practitioners and, in Keith's case, it's more than being successful, in many ways he and Dan Patrick were pioneers in the 'SportsCenter 'world. More than anything else, I love how opinionated he is. I'm sure there will be some phone calls from the league on Monday morning from occasional opinions that will come up now on the show."
Olbermann, whose emergence in the sports news business included stints at L.A.'s KTLA Channel 5 and KCBS Channel 2 before he left for ESPN in 1992 to do five years of "SportsCenter," says he doesn't anticipate this new job to affect his other media positions, except maybe an occasional day off on a Friday from the Patrick radio show during the NFL season.
"We haven't discussed parameters," said Olbermann, when asked if he may have a problem saying things pro-NFL, "but I think they are naturally there. What we are doing on 'Football Night in America' is football. And whereas occasionally societal issues cross back and forth, very rarely have I found them to politically oriented. So if you are thinking that this is going to be some sort of venue for promoting or criticizing a political viewpoint, I don't see it happening. I am not going in there with any kind of agenda. I have been a sportscaster much longer than I have been a commentator and I think I know the difference of when to do that stuff and when not to...There will be plenty of opinions about football."
For the record, Olbermann has worked for NBC Sports in the past. In 1997, after leaving ESPN, he was anchor on the World Series and Major League Baseball's All-Star Game, and contributing to pre-game coverage of the Super Bowl.

Following up on the story in today's Daily News about the GeezerJocks who refuse to lose when it comes to competing well past their 40th birthday, we asked GeezerJocks magazine vice president of sales Bill Ferguson how he's been able to market the colorful title of the publication both to advertisers and consumers.
"If we called it 'Masters Sports Magazine,' or something like that, it would put people to sleep," Ferguson said. "You definitely remember this name because it has an attitude with the juxtaposed words. It shows that jocks don't have to be 20-year-old kids, and geezers aren't 70 year-olds collecting social security and watching 'Matlock." Our readers don't care what you call them, as long as they can kick your butt in rugby or dunk over you in basketball. That's the mindset we've all maintained, and we've had a lot of fun with it. Almost all the response is positive; for ever 20 negative responses, we have 50,000 who've subscribed, who remember us and call us back."
Ferguson, a 38-year-old rugby fanatic, notes that 70 percent of the subscribers are under 60, and actually those under 40 make up 15 percent of the readers. California is the magazine's second-biggest subscriber base behind Illinois (mostly because the magazine is based in Chicago).
"The 'Boomer' generation has been the buzzword when we start talking to advertisers, and this is the wealthiest generation in the history of the world that isn't growing old like those before them. We've had a lot of people thanking us for shining the spotlight on them and acknowledging what they're doing."
Editor and co-founder Sean Callahan (seen here interviewing Kathy Jager at the 2004 USATF Masters Outdoor Championships in Decatur, Illinois -- photo courtesy of Ken Stone) also has embraced the GeezerJocks name because "we're taking two words and putting them together in a way that you wouldn't think. A geezer isn't old and decrepid, he can kick your ass. And a jock isn't a young football player, it's whoever chooses to seize it."
The current March/April GJ issue includes a piece on those former world-class athletes who refuse to quit -- among them Jose Canseco, who's been playing for the San Fernando Valley Mets of the Men's Senior Baseball League on a team managed by Granada Hills’ Roger Clark. The August/September issue last year had a cover story on beach volleyball, focusing on how many over 40 still play it up and down the California coast.
Ken Stone, whose MastersTrack.com website has thrived since 1996, thinks that GeezerJock magazine is "catching lightning in a bottle" since many Masters sports publications have come and gone due "mainly to lousy promotion, and also bad timing." (Read Stone's opinions on this in a recent blog from his site).
"Advertisers want boomers, and GeezerJock is leveraging a potentially rich slice. It's the first to professionally capitalize on the sea-change attitude of advertisers toward the masters market."
Stone also notes that GeezerJock's key advertisers include Anheuser Busch (which sponsors the Michelob Ultra award for the year’s top geezerjocks), a Florida retirement community called The Villages, and some major event organizers like the National Senior Games Association and Huntsman World Senior Games.
"Some publications are resisting the masters movement, such as Track & Field News, which runs articles on masters-age athletes only if they’re world-class at an open level – such as hurdlers Alan Johnson (35) and Gail Devers (40) or pole vaulters Pat Manson and Jeff Hartwig (both 39)," says Stone, who says he once urged that publication to revive its coverage of Masters events but was rebuffed.
"GJ, which I liken to a Sports Illustrated for adult age-groupers, is simply riding that wave of demand. The hardest part won't be attracting readers and advertisers. It’s accommodating so many masters constituencies. You often see letters to the editor saying, “Why don’t you cover (my sport)?”
(One recent letter to GJ, from Tony Sokolowski of Los Angeles, asked: "I'm a 60-year-old avid handball player and I'm curious to know why the game of handball has not been regularily featured in GeezerJock ... how about making it a regular feature?")
"Mainstream coverage of masters sports has been growing for years," Stone continued. "But rather than look at the phenomenon of masters sports, media outlets focus on freaks of nature – masters legend Phil Raschker being a finalist for the AAU Sullivan Award, or the latest record-setters at masters nationals or worlds."

For more infomation:
=The official GeezerJock website
=An interview that GeezerJock editor Sean Callahan did with NPR radio
=Stone's MastersTrack.com independent site
=The growth of the "gray market" filled with baby boomers from a Reuters story the business of Runner's World magazine

By LOUISE STORY
New York Times
Who watches more television — the business traveler or the sports fan?
The Nielsen Company, the longtime arbiter of television viewing, may soon suggest an answer.
Beginning in September, Nielsen will release national ratings for television viewing outside the home in places like bars, hotels, gyms and offices, the company announced today. For decades, Nielsen has rated television viewing based only on what viewers in its panel watch while they are home. The moment those viewers traveled or went to the gym, however, any television they watched was not recorded.
For some types of television programs, the new ratings may provide a significant boost. Sports fans, for example, often watch games in restaurants or bars, and business people often watch the news in airports, their offices or at hotels.
Television networks like ESPN, CBS and CNN have complained for years that out-of-home viewing was not counted because they are generally paid by advertisers only for the viewers counted by Nielsen. The move by Nielsen is a step in the rating company’s larger plan to measure television viewing everywhere it occurs, whether on televisions, computers and mobile devices.

Read on for more ...

(Jeff Schrier, The Saginaw News)

Yup, that's Tommy Lasorda smiling to the crowd as he enters the dugout of the Great Lakes Loons at new $33 million Dow Diamond ballpark before the start of the team's inaugural home baseball game Friday night.The jacket could have been worse. The Loons were playing the Lansing Lugnuts. Turns out, Lasorda will miss his 57th wedding anniversary with wife Jo today because he's here in Midland, Michigan to break in the new home of the Dodgers' Single-A affiliate. Great Lakes, with Lance Parrish as the manager, lost to Lansing, 6-2.

SEATTLE (AP) - Eric Gagne walked onto a major league mound for the first time in more than 10 months and was greeted by a cheesy scoreboard clip trying to inspire a Mariners rally against him.
It didn't work.
Gagne pitched a scoreless ninth inning, including a strikeout of Ichiro Suzuki, for his second save in 22 months to help the Texas Rangers beat Seattle 5-2 on Friday night.
In the scoreboard clip, Kurt Russell was portraying former Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks in the movie "Miracle." But in his head, Gagne was replaying the hard rock anthem that used to greet him in the ninth inning when he was the closer coming out of the Dodger Stadium bullpen: Guns 'N Roses "Welcome to the Jungle."
"I was trying to stop shaking. I was nervous out there," Gagne said of his first save since last June 6, before back surgery ended his season in July. "It's been two frustrating years. Now, I'm back on track."
The bushy haired, bushing bearded Gagne then knocked his hand on the wood shelf of his locker.
"You never know when it's going to end," he said.
He thought it might be over last summer when doctors took out 85 percent of his L-4 and L-5 vertebrae in his lower back. Then came three months without being able to jog, more waiting for a pitching elbow to heal from surgery last April and two weeks of extended spring training with Double-A Frisco that ended when he came off the disabled list Friday morning.
The Rangers took a $6 million, one-year flyer on him - with as much as $5 million more possible based on how many games the three-time All-Star finishes. All that is why Friday's ninth inning was as glorious for Gagne as any of the 152 games he saved for the Dodgers from 2002-04.
"Finally, we got a chance to see him close a ball game," Rangers manager Ron Washington said. "That's what we brought him here to do, get three outs."
Gagne said he was overanxious while falling behind the first batter he faced, pinch-hitter Ben Broussard. He fell behind 2-0 before Broussard blooped a single off him.
Gagne then threw four consecutive fastballs that hit 93 mph to Suzuki. Last year's major league hits leader swung over the fourth one for his eighth strikeout in 22 at-bats, extending his hitless streak to 12 at bats.
Former Dodgers teammate Adrian Beltre, who swore if he ever faced Gagne in a game, he wanted to see a curveball, was next. Beltre told Gagne he knows when the closer was about to throw a curve because he could see his fingers spread before the pitch from his position at third base.
Beltre never saw the first-pitch bender coming and froze as the strike went by. The two former Dodgers then laughed at each other. Gagne even had to step off the mound momentarily to get serious again.
"No, I was expecting that," Beltre said, still smiling about his former pal.
Two fastballs later, Beltre grounded into a double play. Game over, just as the Dodger Stadium scoreboard used to proclaim.
"I wanted to (mess) him up ... but I'm happy for him," Beltre said. "It would be kind of sad to see that much talent and an arm like that lost to injury."
Gagne punctuated his save with three, short, understated fist pumps. He received hugs from his new teammates, and threw the ball his teammates gave him into the stands.
"I've done that 84 times in a row," Gagne said, referring to his major league record for save conversions that ended in 2004.
Before the game, Gagne was activiated from the 15-day disabled list. He noted his fastball was more in the 92 or 93-mph range instead of the upper 90s when he was the NL Cy Young Award winner in 2003.
"But I'll take that right now," he said. He said his changeup was "great" during his two-week rehabilitation stint at Double-A Frisco.
It took Gagne until October following the back surgery to jog without pain. Then he had to wait until his elbow was ready for an extensive throwing routine, which he finally eased into by February. He still has occasional elbow soreness.
Washington said he will not hesitate to use Gagne in consecutive games right away. But Gagne will strictly be a ninth-inning ace _ no four-to-six out save situations for him. Washington talked glowingly about Gagne pitching ninth innings, Akinori Otsuka pitching the eighth and Joaquin Benoit entering in the seventh, provided Rangers starters can last six innings.
"I like what I've got seven-eight-nine," Washington said.
Gagne said the three outings he had at Double-A _ which amounted to an extended spring training for him _ were valuable in teaching him how to pitch with less reliance on his fastball and more on finesse.
"It's a work in progress _ with my whole body," Gagne said. "I've still got a little work to do, but I'm getting close."

Famed sports agent Leigh Steinberg was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol after an early-morning crash today in Newport Beach on Pacific Coast Highway, the Orange County Register reports today.
Police say the 58-year-old Steinberg smacked three parked cars at around 1 a.m. while driving his 2002 Mercedes ML 500 sports utility vehicle near the Balboa Bay Club. No one was hurt, but Steinberg's car took a beating despite the fact he was doing just 35 mph, the limit for that part of the road, according to reports.
Steinberg became famous in L.A. some 20-plus years ago when representing then-USFL L.A.Express quarterback Steve Young . He got the BYU star to shun the NFL and sign a then-staggering $40 million contract. Steinberg's list of current clients include Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Rothlisberger and boxer Oscar de la Hoya.
According to the makers of the Tom Cruise movie, "Jerry Maguire," Steinberg was sort of the inspiration of the main character and even had a small part in the movie, representing Troy Aikman. Correct us if we're wrong, but we don't remember a scene where Maguire takes out a row of cars because he was in a hurry to get to a TV set to see his only client perform in a bad "Monday Night Football" game.
“I know that it is not acceptable to get behind the wheel after having consumed any amount of alcohol," Steinberg said after his release in a statement. "I take full responsibility for my behavior, and I will take appropriate action to prevent any remotely similar behavior in the future."
That's nice, considering 10 years ago, he was sentenced to community service after an arrest in Newport Beach on ... hey .... suspicion of drunken driving.
We're gonna check the Newport Beach police records again. We gotta find out if the arresting officer said that Steinberg's explanation of what happened was animated and long-winded, but "we had him at 'Huhhh --hhhhh --- loooo (burp)."

Picking up on the media column from today's Daily News that covers ESPN's plans for Sunday's 60th anniversary of the Jackie Robinson debut, as well as covering the media protocol in Jonathan Eig's book on Robinson's first year in the big leagues, ESPN senior vice president and executive producer for remote productions Jed Drake is confident the network has struck "the right tone" with its multi-layered plan to cover not just the historical moment but make it fit into the game broadcast of the Dodgers-Padres telecast that starts well before the first pitch (moved back to 5:15 p.m.)
ESPN will have guests such as Rachel Robinson, Don Newcombe, Frank Robinson, Hank Aaron and Dave Winfield during the three-hour window of "SportsCenter" and "Baseball Tonight" (2-to-5 p.m.) that preceeds the game. Also, Bob Ley's "Outside the Lines" on Sunday (6:30 a.m.) will show the second part of an interview Robin Roberts did with Rachel Robinson, the first part of which aired Thursday. For what it's worth, ESPN Classic will also air the 1950 docudrama, "The Jackie Robinson Story," which Robinson played himself, at 5 p.m. opposite the game.
ESPN started a 16-day "After Jackie" collection of programming leading up to the broadcast.
"We made sure that our plan was very comprehensive, listening to a lot of people on who to bring on, how to craft it all because it's a topic that far transcends the game and we wanted to get it right," said Drake. "We may have had a dress rehersal for this when two weeks ago we covered the Civil Rights Game in Memphis (with Jon Miller, Joe Morgan, Peter Gammons and other promiment African-American guests). We handled it so that a variety of opinions were heard, from Spike Lee to Hank Aaron. What struck me was that while we commemorate 60th anniversary of Jackie, it's important to recognize baseball now is suffeinrg a decline in African American players. It was a call to arm and we’lll use that theme in Sunday's broadcast."
To that issue, Morgan says he can site a couple of reasons why the percentages are down of black players in today's major leagues.
"It's not one answer, and that became apparent after talking to Spike Lee and Frank Robinson at the Civil Rights game," said Morgan. "What we really need to happen is have fans from the African-American community. We need baseball to make the effort to let them know they're needed and appreciated. Without fans, everything is only a short-term solution. My dad took me to games and pointed out why things happened. You need that connection.
"Another thing that has bothered me is how the scouting combines are set up now. College are the primary spots to find players now, but not many African American kids play baseball because that sport doesn't offer many full scholarships. Those can be had with football and basketball, so baseball misses out on a lot of minority players. Baseball almost becomes an elite sport, where kids growing up, if they're well off, have their own hitting instructors when they're 8 years old. A lot of minorities get lost in that shuffle. When I came out of Oakland, there were so many black players to look up to: Frank Robinson, Curt Flood, Vada Pinson, leading to Rickey Henderson, Dave Stewart, and on and on. It's not the same any more. Maybe that's an oversimplification, but but why should a kid turn down a scholarship for football or basketball when baseball won't offer him one."

Read on for more of ESPN's coverage and Morgan's comments ...

NBC Sports has figured out a way to Canada-ize its NHL Stanley Cup finals coverage by adding the CBC’s favorite loudmouth, Don Cherry, in some capacity to its broadcasts that begin in June with Games 3 through 7 (after the first two games are shown on Versus). As a result, the CBC will have NBC’s Brett Hull on loan to them for their “Hockey Night in Canada” coverage in some way. NBC starts its playoff coverage Saturday at noon with Pittsburgh-Ottawa Game 2 and Sunday at 10 a.m. with Detroit-Calgary Game 2. On how Cherry will go over on a U.S. hockey broadcast, Hull, who does the NBC studio show with Bill Clement and Ray Ferraro, told reporters: “He tells it like it is. If they did it on a regular basis, he would be just as popular down here as he is up there. Part of the thing that's missing, not with just hockey, but in all coverage in the American sports world, is some personality. I think that's why you see a guy like Terry Bradshaw, as popular as he is. He's not just Mr. PC, going through ‘That was a nice catch and throw.'" Says Cherry, who has been with the CBC since 1980: “A lot of people have written that what I say up here I would never get away with it down in the States. I’ll just go on and do what I have to do. In the States, they wanted me to go on one time in Pittsburgh. Jaromir Jagr, when he had long hair, was with Mario Lemieux and I said, ‘There's Mario and his daughter.’ It didn't go over too good. That was my last time in the States.” Cherry says he believes the best teams in the league are in the Western Conference and is predicting an Anaheim-San Jose matchup to determine who’ll play the Eastern Conference winner. But it won’t preclude Cherry, who according to a 2004 CBC poll was named the seventh greatest Canadian (ahead of Alexander Graham Bell and Wayne Gretzky) from rooting for a Canadian team. “I've got to root for all the Canadian teams, that's for sure,” he said. “I'd like to see Calgary. There's something about that Calgary club that reminds me of old-time hockey. all scarred up.”

Read on for more notes ...

AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian

Here's a fan (above) wearing an England national soccer team jersey with David Beckham's name on the back sucking face with his girlfriend as he waits in line to purchase tickets for the Galaxy's home opener against FC Dallas at Home Depot Center on Thursday. Did the girl know Beckham wasn't playing? Of course not. The guy roped her into going under false pretenses. What a guy. Becks, of course, isn't supposed to be done with his Real Madrid team until July. But that doesn't mean the fans couldn't stop dreaming.
Here's another fan entering a contest to win a luxury (to use the term loosly) suite at HDC for when Beckham finally relocates. Good luck with that. You might as well buy up a bunch more California Lottery Scratchers while you've got your head in the clouds. And for anyone who was wondering, here's how Beckham spent his Thursday: Bouncing the ball off his head during a team workout at Valdebebas Stadium outside Madrid. Looks like it hurt him much more than it hurt us for not having watched him play Thursday night during the Galaxy's 2-1 home-opening loss, which dropped their record to 0-1-1.

AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza

Someday, the sun will come out in Cleveland. And when it does, by cracky, we'll harness that energy.
Solar panels that'll go up at the Jacobs Field and down the street at the Great Lakes Science Center will allow visitors to view and learn about renewable energy, according to the nonprofit Green Energy Ohio organization and the Cleveland Indians, who'll will erect 50 photovoltaic panels on the upper concourse at Jacobs Field, according to the Associated Press.
The array will be 86 feet long and 15 feet high, generating a modest amount of power, said Jim Folk, the team's vice president for ballpark operations.
The Indians want to reduce energy consumption, Folk said, and could expand solar capacity by adding panels to the sun screen over the upper deck. He declined to say what the project costs.
The project, costing less than $500,000, will generate about 30 to 40 kilowatts of electricity, less than 1 percent of the center's power needs, Executive Director Linda Abraham-Silver said.
The value is in raising awareness about renewable energy sources and their economic upside, said Richard Stuebi of the Cleveland Foundation, which provided a grant to Green Energy for an informational kiosk near the ballpark solar array.
With all that extra solar power, maybe the snow blowers can work more economically as well.

Tiger Woods Reveals He Is Zach Johnson

"Did you seriously think I was going to lose this weekend?" Woods said, holding his "Johnson" mask aloft just moments after sinking "Johnson's" final putt as the gallery, surprised and relieved to have witnessed the Tiger Woods triumph they came to see, redoubled their cheers. "No way. This tournament was mine from the beginning. My only regret was that I was so busy playing 'Johnson's' game and mine simultaneously that 'Tiger's' score suffered."

Leading into Sunday's Dodgers-Padres game that will commemorate the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the major league color barrier, ESPN has a one-hour SportsCenter special planned to air today at 5 p.m., hosted by Karl Ravech and including Dusty Baker, Peter Gammons, John Kruk and Eric Young.
The focus of the show will be a roundtable discussion with African-American players Carl Crawford, Jimmy Rollins and CC Sabathia. Among the topics of discussion will be the fact that in the late 1970s, the rosters of major league baseball had nearly 28 percent blacks, but that number is down to less than nine percent today.
An excerpt from that taped interview:
Q: Is the lack of African Americans discussed in clubhouses?
Rollins: “It’s really not a hot topic in the clubhouse. You know, we talk amongst ourselves and we look at different teams that come in and of course the first thing we look for is how many brothers they got and sometimes you know it’s one dude by himself.”
Q: What Jackie Robinson means to you?
Sabathia: “He means everything to me. I wouldn’t be sitting here today if it wasn’t for him. I always think about all the stuff he went through to help us get here. That’s why I think we need to be addressing this right now as far as the lack of African Americans in the game, just because of what he went through alone. So I think we need to pay him that much respect just to try to get something going.”

The rumble generated from a succinct yet ill-conceived comment that New York (and barely syndicated) morning show host Don Imus made last week somehow leaped the firelines this week and entered the wringing hands of the sports world because a) his target was a group of women basketball players at Rutgers and b) the station he works for is WFAN, the biggest sports-talk station going.
But all this could have easily been doused with one cold bucket of water years ago. Yet, today, we deal with it.
It wasn't Imus' first attempt at strange, twisted, obnoxious piece of humor that simply fell flat. Google searches will turn up all kinds of misdeeds. This time, his dismount from self-inflicted publicity was such an awkward landing that enough people stopped to watch the clean-up crew try some even more ridiculous damage control. Adding Al Sharpton to the circus also does wonders to make what could have been something to take care of on a smaller level suddenly an deal that news organizations love to run with.
Take no small grain of salt about what Imus said. He's perpetuated a stereotype that goes beyond racism. My surprise -- and maybe it shouldn't have been -- is the sexism issue that has been the deeper hurt among females who react to this. To me, it became an issue when the Rutgers team stood together and said it wasn't acceptable. No grandstanding. No screaming and reverse name-calling. Just simple hurt. They didn't have to be a women's basketball team, but to get attention in the sports end of the food chain, it helped.
For the last several days, the issue has been debated back and forth (and back again) on many sports-talk stations, which is at least topical but really isn't a sports topic Should he be fired? He used his right to free speech, and now he's deadling with the backlash. He's helping redefine the demarcation of good taste and respectful humor in today's society, just as Michael Richard did recently. We need an Imus, or a White Sox manager yelling something at a sportswriter, to put his foot in his mouth once and awhile to take our collective temperature on how we would like to deal with these words of hate and stupidity.
I gotta say this suspension that takes place next week -- not immediately -- is proof that his radio bosses are only doing this to try to look responsible and keep him on through a station-sponsored fund-raiser. You either keep him on to face the music indefinitely, based on his track record, or you make him unemployed. It's too valuable, apparently, to do the later, because all he'd do it get hired by another station and take warped listeners away from them. The reaction to this has to be econonically thought out -- boycotting sponsors, specifically, or simply tuning the whole thing out. Thankfully, we don't even have that choice here in Los Angeles.

Here are other blog- and newspaper-generated reactions to this issue that might put things in context:
Barbara Ehrenreich in The Nation
Michael Gaynor at The Conservative Voice
Betty Baye of the Louisville Courier-Journal
News updates from Monsters and Critics

Continuing our reviews of what's new in baseball media:

The book: "How Bill James Changed Our View of Baseball: By colleagues, critics, competitors and just plain fans," edited by Gregory F. Augustine Pierce (ACTA books, $19.95, 140 pages)

The windup: A dozen writers, researchers and baseball people discuss how Bill James' self-published books about the game starting back in 1977 affected not just how the sport is thought about, but how he inspired others to take a new look at other aspects of the world around us. Contributors include Baseball America senior writer Alan Schwartz, author John Thorn, Wall Street Journal sports columnist Sam Walker, Houston Astros assistant GM Daryl Morey, ESPN analyst Rob Neyer, as well as James' wife, Susan McCarthy. James also has the final essay, reacting to the premise of the book.

The pitch: Last year, author Scott Gray came out with "The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball" ($23.95, DoubleDay, 256 pages), but since then, James was included in Time magazine's list of the "100 Most Influential People in the World." Why? That's the starting point for this, and for anyone who's simply disregarded his skewed look at trying to manipulate numbers and recalculate methods of valuing baseball players should take another look at him through the eyes of these essayists. In "The Arrogance of Bill James" by Gary Huckabay, the founder of the Baseball Prospectus, it's James' ability to "make tedious data accessable and even fascinating, when combined with his intimate and iconoclastic writing style (that) somehow cointributed to the perception that there was an arrogance to his work. The very items that made his material readable and enjoyable were often well outside the realm of strict analysis ... Ultimately, I think James' impact has been far greater outside of baseball than within it. He helped shape the culture of innovation in our society that's been responsible for many positve improvements." Pretty heavy stuff.
James, who today is employed by the Boston Red Sox in part because of how he influenced the way current GM Theo Epstein judges talent, says in his essay that his mode of operation might be what helps others cut through the clutter of extraneous statistics and finds the heart of the issue. "There is a certain advantage in not knowing anything, which is that, since I don't know anything, I am always dealing with questions, rather than answers. I start with the big questions, and I break those down into smaller questions, and then I break the smaller questions into smaller questions down to smaller questions and smaller questions still. Eventually we arrive at the level of factual questions that have answers." Got it? One of today's great thinkers, in small book form, is definitely worth pondering over between innings of a game you're watching.

Continuing our reviews of what's new in baseball media:

The book: "The SABR Baseball List & Record Book: Baseball's Most Fascinating Records and Unusual Stats," edited by Lyle Spatz, chairman of the baseball records committee for the Society for American Baseball Research (Schribner, $17.95, paperback, 496 pages)

The windup: It's not a record book like "The Sporting News Complete Baseball Record and Fact Book" or the "Elias Book of Baseball Records," nor does it claim to be like the "ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia" or "Total Baseball," as Spatz explains in the introduction. It expands the list of leaders in every hitting, pitching and fielding category, breaks it down by positions and then adds things that are otherwise pretty tough to find unless you're a SABR member. A record book, for example, would tell you that Ted Williams has the mark for most RBIs by a rookie (145), but this book will give you every rookie who's ever drove in 100 runs in a season. If a media guide has information about the last pitcher to ever steal home, this book has every pitcher who's ever done it. There are 740 lists, starting with "Most Career Games Played" and ending with "Famlies with Three or More Brothers who Played in the Major Leagues." A player index is also included to find a particular person and all the lists he's included in.

The pitch: Keep this around in the bathroom and flip through a couple pages at every rest stop, and you'll be both amused and amazed what you stumble across. Our favorite at the moment is: Every player who has won the reverse Triple Crown (finishing last in the league in average, home runs and RBI after qualifying with enough at bats to have actually won the Triple Crown if the stats in those three categories were actually good enough).
There are 13 of them, including a Hall of Famer. Can you figure that one out? Time's up: 1979, San Diego shortstop Ozzie Smith hit .211 with 0 homers and 27 RBI. The last reverse Triple Crown winner was Detroit's Ramon Santiago (.225, 2 HR, 29 RBI).
A side note: For years as a kid, we'd be content with reading the latest edition of "Who's Who in Baseball," with the basic black-and-white pictures of all the big-leaguers, waiting to see who'd be on the cover (the 2007 edition has Twins pitcher Johan Santana). Even after we got hooked on SABR stats, we never strayed from the annual "Who's Who" book, maybe out of loyalty, probably out of the fact it was there, almost the same year after year, like a new pack of baseball cards. Hopefully, the publishers (who are in the 92nd year) will keep putting it out there (it's $9.95 now, still in paperback) for those of us who need it as kind of a security blanket in a world where stats are tossed around and twisted about so strangely that sometimes, you just need the basics.

Continuing our reviews of what's new in baseball media:

The movie: "Major League: Wild Thing Edition," Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment, $14.99 (Rated R), with an Astro-turf cover packaging, in stores April 10.

The windup: The 1989 movie is reissued with cast interviews from Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Corbin Bernsen, Dennis Haysbert and Bob Uecker, plus an alternate ending: Team owner Rachel Phelps, played by Margaret Whitton, admits she had no plan to move the team to Florida and planned the whole thing so they'd be inspired to win and stay in Cleveland. According to producer Chris Chesser, the Phelps character tested to be someone who the audience grew to hate so much, they gave 'em what they wanted and changed it to where she was upset with the team winning its final game against the Yankees and saving the franchise, rather than cheering in the owners box as it was shot from the original script.

The pitch: Maybe it's no coincidence that Sheen revived the role of Rich "Wild Thing" Vaughn in the new DirecTV ads (which were actually filmed at Dodger Stadium). The interesting part is how Haysbert (Pedro Cerrano) has had a career that has taken off from this film, while Berenger and Bernsen have hardly been heard from since. Haysbert's closing credit in this film isn't until 10 actors down in the final scroll. We enjoyed the Uecker special interview, where he admits most of the things he said were stuff he'd do during a regular Milwaukee Brewers broadcast anyway. The deleted Uecker scenes that are spliced into the interview are worth the price of the DVD. If Paramount is hoping to draw sales on this just as they have with the "Tommy Boy: Holy Schnike Edition" or the "Airplane: Don't Call me Shirley Edition," more power to 'em. In Randy Williams' recently released book, "Sports Cinema: 100 Movies," "Major League" ranks a respectable 69th for its funny dialogue and sight gags amidst the cartoon characterizations of big-league players.

Continuing our reviews of what's new in baseball media:

The movie: "The Natural: Director's Cut," Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, $24.95, two discs, released today.

The windup: When director Barry Levinson and editor Stu Linder put together the 1984 movie starring Robert Redford and Glenn Close, they weren't happy with the way the Roy Hobbs character was developed in the opening scene. But time restrains prevented them from putting it together the way they had envisioned it. "We had this simplified version because of the tight production schedule, and Stu and I would be on the set of another movie later and we'd always say, 'You know, about The Natural ...," said Levinson. "At some point we wanted to get the footage and cut it ourselves. When there was mention of a new DVD version, instead of just looking for deleted scenes, we mentioned it to some people about how we wanted to reconstruct the opening, and they went looking for shots, like an archelogical dig. They'd find a clip here in some box and another one there. Ultimately we got it together and did it as close to how we wanted it before we abandoned the idea. It gives Roy Hobbs a more finished character, and a very darker character who's plagued by his past." Linden, who died of a heart attack on the set of Levinson's "Man of the Year" production last year, was never able to see the fnished product.

The pitch: The box says there is 15 added minutes to the movie, but Levinson, who explains all the changes made in a five-minute introduction to the movie, says they actually found 20 minutes worth of film and spliced it in to make the opening scene six minutes longer. This version has Hobbs (Redford) visiting his old house and having more flashbacks to his childhood, rather than the straight narrative in the original. It does play better and gives more context to the pain Hobbs felt about what had happened to him. New interviews with Redford and Close, plus improved sound and color make this worth having in the DVD collection. Other new features are a "making of" documentary and a discussion about the mythology of the movie. Compare and contract it to the original; this one's better.

Continuing our reviews of what's new in baseball media:

The book: "Sports Illustrated: Great Baseball Writing," edited by Rob Fleder (paperback, 560 pages, $16.95).

The windup: Some 50 essays and stories from Verducci, Creamer, Wulf, Nack, Montville, McCallum, Kahn, Deford, Gammons, Telander. Even Robert Frost and George Plimpton (unfortunatly, not his story on Sidd Finch).

The pitch: Breaking down the price you pay per page, it's a bargain. But is it stuff you've already read? Even in SI book form? Go back to your bookshelf for a second. In 2005, the editors of SI came out with a book entitled "Great Baseball Writing," also 560 pages, but for $25.95, with a picture of Sandy Koufax on the hardcover cover. Fieder also edited it. Yup, it's the same collection of work. Only there's a new introduction by Michael Lewis, the author of "Moneyball." How appropriate. Money's the reason this was issued again, in paperback, with a different cover.

A review: From Victor Illonardo, a reader on Amazon.com: "I own several hundred baseball books and this one slides safely (without a throw) into the top ten. ... My favorites? Creamer's essay on Vin Scully, which includes a brilliant account of Scully broadcasting from a stadium roof during a freezing winter. Dan Okrent's gem revealing the statistical genius of Bill James years before he hit the mainstream. Oddly, a couple of the more famous pieces, Rick Rilley's "Heaven Help Marge Schott" really does come off as a hatchet-job on a old lady."

Continuing our reviews of what's new in baseball media:

The book: "The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed," by J.C. Bradbury (Dutton Adult, 288 pages, $24.95)

The windup: An economist professor explains how steroids have nothing to do with the recent home-run records, who's overvalued, why small-city franchise can dominated their larger foes and whether "Moneyball" really works.

The pitch: Bradbury is a popular baseball blogger (www.sabernomics.com) who already has the juice to pull something like this off and make it credible. He coined the phrase "sabernomics" as a way to describe modern economics with the statistics that Bill James brought in, with help from the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). The book actually stops on page 229, but the back 50-plus pages are appendix and bibliography. We're partial to chapter 3: "The Extinct Left-Handed Catcher," which points out that the Atlanta Braves' Adam LaRoche would be the most perfect example of someone who could thrive as a lefty receiver if he wasn't a victim of discrimination. "Using only right-handed catchers is like locking your car door in a small town with no crime. The chancs that someone will break into your car are tiny, but the cost of protecting yourself against the small likelihood of the negative consequences is so low (pressing the lock button) that it's still worth locking the door." Which means, the advantage of a right-handed catcher with a runner representing the winning run on second base in the ninth inning is worth it. It's also the case of: If you're a lefty-catcher with a good arm, the team probalby needs you as a pitcher instead.

Another review: From Publishers Weekly: "Like. Like a scrappy role player, Bradbury's enthusiasm is evident. While not forging new ground, (he) shines in the closing chapters, in which he convincingly bucks the conventional wisdom that Major League Baseball behaves like a monopoly. While the numbers crunched are more of the Financial Times than the box score kind, the issues the book deals with are those discussed in many a barroom. "

Continuing our reviews of what's new in baseball media:

The book: "Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History," by Cait Murphy (Collins/Smithsonian Books, 368 pages, $24.95).

The windup: The title doesn't even mention that it's the year the Chicago Cubs won a World Series, so that's how out of wack that 1908 season must have been. Fred Merkle ring a bell?

The pitch: Murphy is an assistant managing editor at Fortune magainze who also worked at The Economist in London and The Wall Street Journal Asia in Hong Kong. And she's written a baseball history book? It's right up there with Laura Hillebrand's book on Seabiscuit. Plus, any book that can get the words "cranks," "rogues" and "boneheads" into the title has to draw attention and raise our curiosity. Somehow, she forgot to use the phrase "loopy shenanigans." Of all the baseball books out there this year, this is the one we've looked forward to finishing first. The tone itself is wisecracking, which fits the year in question.

Another brief review: From Bryce Christensen of Booklist: "A writer of exceptional verve when recounting the heroics of the diamond, Murphy evinces a shrewd intelligence when scanning the cultural forces remaking the world beyond the ballpark. She unravels the malign dynamics behind Ty Cobb's violence against blacks, and she limns the parallels between early-twentieth-century anxieties about immigrant anarchists and twenty-first-century fears of foreign terrorists. A book that will long claim the attention of serious sports enthusiasts."

If you like this one, try: "Level Playing Fields: How the Groundskeeping Murphy Brothers Shaped Baseball," by Peter Morris ($24.95, University of Nebraska Press, 194 pages), which gets into the dirt and grass aspects of the game's history;
"The Kansas City A's and the Wrong Half of the Yankees: How the Yankees Controlled Two of the Eight American League Franchises During the 1950s," by Jeff Katz ($24.95, Maple Street Press, 250 pages), on how the A's were considered the Yankees' farm team, since K.C. owner Arnold Johnson was a joint owner of Yankee Stadium with Del Webb and Dan Topping;
"The Gashouse Gang: How Dizzy Dean, Leo Durocher, Branch Rickey, Pepper Martin and their Colorful, Come-From-Behind Ball Club Won the World Series and America's Heart During the Great Depression," by John Heidenry ($24.95, Public Affairs Publishing, 321 pages).

Continuing our reviews of what's new in baseball media:

The book: "Dodgers Essential: Everything You Need to Know to be a Real Fan!" by Steve Travers (Triumph, 205 pages, $19.95)

The windup: History, facts, pictures, stories, trivia on the history of the Dodgers.

The pitch: Take the entry we did on "101 Reasons To Love The Dodgers" and add more pages of research. By the way, have we told you how we really felt about Travers' books -- which aren't so much literary pieces of work but extended Google searches and Nexus scans from newspapers and previously written books and simply repackaged them. Travers also has knocked out the "Angels Essential," "A's Essential," and "Diamondbacks Essential" this spring, so essentially, he's spraying to all fields. And considering he likes to write reviews all over Amazon.com for other books, don't be surprised if some are done on his link there that make this the "can't miss book of the season!" Complete with the exclamation point.