There are 19 contributions to the new book, “Game of My Life: Memorable Stories of Dodgers Baseball,” by team historian Mark Langill ($24.95, 256 pages, Sports Publishing LLC), but the two that strike deepest most may be from the media members, Hall of Fame broadcasters Vin Scully and Jamie Jarrin. Scully’s choice would hardly be one anyone could have guessed: May 13, 1952 at Ebbets Field, when the Brooklyn Dodgers defeated the St. Louis Cardinals 14-8. Larry Miggins homered that day for the Cards. Miggins was Scully’s classmate back in the early 1940s at Fordham Prep school in New York, and the two of them shared a dream one day about both being in the big leagues one day – Scully as a broadcaster and Miggins as a player. And, as Scully said, “miracle upon miracles” happened that day as Miggins homered in one of the two innings that Scully was calling that day. Scully also has a tie-in to Jarrin’s story about the 1990 All-Star Game at Wrigley Field, which came only a few months after he had suffered a bad traffic accident in spring training and nearly lost his life because of internal injuries. He was still having trouble breathing because of the pain in his chest and wasn’t sure how he’d do climbing the stairs at Wrigley Field to do the Spanish-language broadcast. Scully was there also for the CBS Radio. And while Jarrin was only able to do three innings, he took a picture with Scully in the press box and “that picture tells me I was probably reborn on that day … that’s whey my life in baseball started again,” Jarrin said.

On that theme, a new book called “Through A Blue Lens: The Brooklyn Dodgers photographs of Barney Stein, 1937-1957” ($27.95, 162 pages, Triumph Books) by Dennis D’Agostino and Stein’s daughter, Bonnie Crosby, pulls together some 200 rare black-and-white prints that the long-time team photographer took over the years and tell the story of the team up until the franchise moved to Los Angeles 50 years ago. Scully provides some personal remembrances and captions some photos (including some of him) and perhaps the most poignant are those of the final game and then destruction of Ebbets Field, and a public auction of items from the stadium, between Februrary and May of 1960. Crosby started to organize her father’s photos upon his death in 1993 at age 84 and eventually put up a website (www.barneystein-photography.com) to display his prints of that time. “Barney Stein is symbolic of the dedicated photographers whose work formed lasting pictorial histories of their generations,” Crosby wrote in the introduction. “The photographs in this book are his legacy to his family and to all Brooklyn Dodgers fans of many generations. They are also a loving testament to a time, and a team, from the best father any two daughters could ever have.” One of Stein’s top pictures ove the years was in 1951, after the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” when he snapped a shot of Ralph Branca in the Dodgers clubhouse despondent after giving up the game-winning homer to Bobby Thomson. As it turned out, Stein was the official wedding photographer for Branca and his wife just days later.

Posted by Tom at 12:22 PM | Permalink

Apathy may be the prevailing attitude in other cities where Barry Bonds travels these days, about to break the major-league baseball career home-run record, but insults will be in full affect tonight when the San Francisco Giants face the New York Mets at Shea Stadium.
The front-page story in today's USA Today spells out how Mets fans came locked and loaded for the series opener Tuesday, only to see Bonds sit, until he made a 10th-inning appearance as a pinch hitter, only to walk.
He's set to be in the starting lineup tonight. Which makes those behind the organization BoycottBarry.com all the more happy.
"Driven by the goal of keeping steroids and illegal drugs out of baseball, BoycottBarry.com will descend on Shea in force to focus critical attention on performance-enhancing drug use in baseball and increase awareness about the dangers of these abuses," according to a press release sent out by the organization, co-founded by Daniel Kramer, who is the son of Robin Kramer, the chief of staff for L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former chief of staff for Richard Riordan.
At 6 p.m. tonight in New York, the BoycottBarry.com volunteers plan to be "at multiple stations" handing out a "Bondsfold," a blindfold that fans are supposed to wear every time he steps to the plate "to demonstrate their desire for authetic records and an even playing field."
"We're excited about promote our core believe in the greatest baseball town in the world," said Kramer.
The group was formed last season and says it has "quickly grown to be the leading voice behind the popular movement to ban Barry Bonds from Major League Baseball's record books."
After whatever happens in New York tonight, there are more stadium protests planned for the rest of this season at "Boycott Barry Nights."
"If no one else will, then fans will act to protect the game so many have grown up to love," the release ends.
ESPN2 is not covering this game; it has Cleveland-Boston instead, while ESPN leads into the Utah-San Antonio NBA playoff game later tonight. ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" isn't scheduled to start until 10:20 p.m. tonight.

Posted by Tom at 07:55 AM | Permalink

You really can't pass up on the opportunty to find more photos of Ashley Judd celebrating her husband's Indy 500 victory on Sunday.
The rain. The tears of joy. More rain. Wet dress.
She's acting as if Kentucky just knocked off Louisville for the NCAA basketlball title. Except this time, it's closer to home. Dario Franchitti, her husband of six years, was declared the winner, and ABC's cameras did all they could to capture her reaction to the rain-shortened, disappointing finish to the event.
How can anyone be happy that it didn't go the distance?
At least one Scottsman can, and these pictures prove it...

AP Photo/Tom Strickland
AP Photo/AJ Mast
Right after Dario was announced the winner Sunday -- which came after Marco Andretti flipped over a couple of times and had the yellow flag come out -- Ashley dashed across the track and made her way to the winner's circle, again drench in the Indiana rain. And again, another opportunity for a reaction shot from right when it was declared over....

We found another AP shot of Ashley admiring Dario from the garage during the milk and weath ceremony, but we just felt it was more important to zoom in for her still beaming reaction. After all, Ashley said afterward, she was very proud of the way he raced at the end to claim the disputed title: "I'd like to point out that my husband went from 14th to first like a gentleman and that's exactly what he is - a gentleman ... He raced like a gentleman, picked 'em off one by one, and won in style."
Well, we wouldn't go that far, but what the heck ...

Another Website, AOL Fanhouse's blog, was able to procure a shot from Getty Images of Ashley looking really, really, really wet ... without makeup, we're not that impressed, but that's life. So why end up running this shot? She's still very happy, and we're happy for her as well. She's got plenty of reasons for joy. For his victory, the 34-year-old Franchitti received $1,645,233, more than he's had during any other full season of his career. He had finished seventh and sixth in the two previous years at Indy and had his best-previous earnings year in 1998 with $1.4 million when he won three races on the CART circuit. His car had only enough fuel for another 10 laps but the rain came at just the right moment for Franchitti. "I can hardly believe it,'' Franchitti said. "Who would have thought it?" He again was talking about the victory, not the fact Ashley was running around in a wet dress with hardly anything under it.

Earlier in the race, before the rains came, Ashley was giving hand signals to anyone who cared. Even the other guy in the pits was looking for a translator... Maybe she was trying to explain why no one went to see her movie, "Bug," when it couldn't find any screens thanks to "Shrek 3" and "Pirates of the Carribean 3."

She's always ready for her closeup. At least before it rains....

They really could have seen this coming. Saturday, after the drivers' meeting, Dario and Ashley walked to a bus that would take them back to whereever, but they needed an umbrella to protect them from the elements. Where was that protection on Sunday? Maybe it was "bugging" her to bring the umbrella. And while on that subject, we hear that she does have some naked scenes in her new movie, "Bug." Here's a snipped of a review from a site called Cinematical: "In many ways, Bug may represent the apex of Ashley Judd's curious career. She's always been something of a green-screen actress without the green-screen, relying on some kind of method to dig deep and come up with seemingly heartfelt, emotive performances in routine thrillers where the surroundings don't warrant that kind of effort. (I'm looking at you, Kiss the Girls.) Judd's motivation is always in her head, which makes her naturally primed to take on a character like Bug's Agnes White, a lonely, small-town waitress who was frozen inside her own emotional headspace years ago, when her young son disappeared out of a grocery cart. She now spends her days being lusted after by the lesbians at a honky-tonk dive where she works, doing drugs, counting up crumpled dollar bills and bracing herself for the unwanted return of her ex-con ex, who has more than one screw loose. "You tried to kill me," she reminds him when he finally washes up on her doorstep. "That was a rough one, yeah," he replies, without trying to be funny."
OK, we're still not convinced to go see it yet...

Finally, once Ashley pulled herself together, she took the traditional winners photo on the start/finish line at Indianapolis Motorspeedway on Monday with her dog Buttercup. She even allowed her husband to get into the shot.

Posted by Tom at 08:57 AM | Permalink

Linking back to the "Writing On (and off) The Wall" column in Sunday's Daily News, here are some of the websites you can find that offer fair trade sports equipment or information about it:

== Fair Trade Sports: fairtradesports.com
Fair Trade Sports, Inc. donates all profits after taxes to children's charities, both domestically and internationally. Using the business model of the Newman's Own brand, Fair Trade Sports expects to reach profitability in late 2007. Until then, it is donating $1,000 annually to the organizations that benefit at-risk children worldwide.
Offices: 321 High School Road NE, Suite D3, #208; Bainbridge Island, WA 98110; 206-855-8222.
Fair Trade Sports products can also be found on eBay.com and at Amazon.com links.

==Y FOCUS-Ottawa: http://yfocus.ncf.ca/fairtrade/product.htm
Y FOCUS is the service club of the YMCA-YWCA in Canada and is a member of an international service club movement working with the YMCA in over 72 countries. The only criteria for membership is to be an idealist who wants to help others. The Fair Trade Sports program is a way to help build a more peaceful world in line with our national theme of "Building a Culture of Peace". Proceeds from the sale of sports balls will be used to fund peace building projects around the world.
The site also has a detailed explanation about what "fair trade" means and its ramifications: http://yfocus.ncf.ca/fairtrade/fairtrade.htm

Both Fair Trade Sports and Y FOCUS offer products made by Talon, a company based in Pakistan:
==Talon Fair Trade: TalonFairTrade.org
With a home office in Pakistan, and satellite offices in Temecula (covering the U.S.), England and Sweden. Pakistan supplies around 70 percent of the world’s soccer balls, with an estimated 44,000 men and women stitchers in the Sialkot region of Pakistan involved in the production of 35 million balls every year. International campaigns in the 1990s have succeeded in virtually eliminating child labor by gradually moving production away from home-based stitchers to independently monitored stitching centers and providing constructive alternatives for children such as basic education and skills training. The centers are operated by the main factories or by subcontractors and are segregated by gender to comply with religious and cultural values. However, low pay and a lack of social benefits remain issues for workers in the industry.

==The Emancipaton Network: Emancipationnetwork.com, and its products link: http://shopping.netsuite.com/madebysurvivors
T.E.N. Charities is a local and international response to the human rights emergency of human trafficking - the modern practice of slavery. It offers a way to become involved in the struggle to end slavery, and give the tools and support to mobilize your friends and your community. There are 27 million people around the world are believed to be enslaved, according to UNICEF. This is more than at any other time in history.

==Fairtrade Foundation: http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/products_sportsballs.htm
Based in the UK.

==Ethletic sneakers: Ethletic.com and No Sweat Apparell: NoSweatApparel.com
Both offer shoes that look an awful lot like the old Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars (now owned by Nike). But they're not. And they have to tell you that. Otherwise, they feel the same and perform the same. Good enough for Wilt Chamberlain in his day.

==Educating For Justice: http://educatingforjustice.org/
EFJ is an Asbury Park, N.J.-based non-profit that develops, produces and distributes justice-oriented programming and content to the educational marketplace. Through research, online resources, digital filmmaking, and grassroots educational events, EFJ seeks to raise awareness about issues of justice and spark efforts for social change. It started in June, 2000, as the Olympic Living Wage Project to raise awareness about the labor abuses of Olympic apparel sponsors to athletes competing in the 2000 Sydney Games. As an experiment, two Americans lived in Indonesia on $1.25 a day, the income level of local factory workers, and brought the truth of that reality to Sydney through a major media campaign focused on these starvation wages paid to Nike and Adidas factory workers. Their documentary, "Sweat," is seeking funding to finish post production.
Thursday, Nike released a press release about resuming production of soccer balls in Pakistan with Silver Star Group, committed to new stanards in worker's rights.

This is a video clip of a story ESPN did on Nike sweatshops, provided on the Educating for Justice Website:

ESPN: St John's and Nike Sweatshops

Add to My Profile | More Videos

==World Centric: worldcentric.org
World Centric is non-profit organization working to reduce economic injustice and environmental degradation through education, community networks & sustainable enterprises.

Posted by Tom at 01:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By TOM DAVIES
Associated Press Writer
INDIANAPOLIS -- Jim Nabors never planned to perform “Back Home Again in Indiana” at the Indianapolis 500. In fact, when speedway owner Tony Hulman first asked him to sing on the morning of the 1972 race, Nabors thought he was being tapped for “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The band director set him straight, then asked with some concern whether Nabors knew the words to “Back Home Again.”
“I said, ‘Well, I think I know part of it,’” Nabors said. “I wrote down the song so I wouldn’t screw it up — wrote it down on my hand.”
Thirty-five years later, Nabors has become as much a part of Indy 500 tradition as the song itself.
Both are a bit unlikely for the role: Nabors is an Alabama native who never has lived in Indiana, a performer best known as the TV character Gomer Pyle. And the song, which waxes poetic about new-mown hay and candlelight through the sycamores, is an example of musical thievery, lifting liberally from the mostly forgotten official state song, a somber ode about the deaths of a mother and sweetheart.
While an illness will keep Nabors from taking the microphone at Sunday’s race for the first time since 1986, loud applause from the thousands filling the grandstands that surround the 2½-mile oval has greeted him for years.
“I’ve never thought of that as relating to me,” Nabors said of the crowd’s reaction. “It’s always relating to the song and to the race. It is applauding for the tradition of the race and the excitement.”

“Back Home Again” — originally titled “Indiana” — debuted as part of the Indy 500 in 1946. That year, James Melton, a New York Metropolitan Opera performer and car collector, took the microphone about 45 minutes before the race, which was the first run since a four-year break during World War II.
“It just got a lot of positive comments, so they invited him back to do it again the next year,” said Donald Davidson, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s historian.
Within a few years, organizers moved the song into its current spot in the Memorial Day weekend tradition — right between the playing of taps and the command to start engines.
Mel Torme, Dinah Shore, Morton Downey Sr., Peter Marshall and others took turns at the microphone during the years. Many times, the decision on who would perform the song with the Purdue University marching band waited until race day.
“They were just last-minute things,” Davidson said. “If there wasn’t a celebrity that was available to do it, then
Purdue would have one of their own people.”
That changed once Nabors gave the song his voice.
“The first year that he did it, I remember a lot of people saying, ‘Oh, yeah, Gomer, what’s he doing here?’ People didn’t know he could sing,” Davidson said. “After about three, four years, he became a tradition and people were unhappy when he wasn’t doing it.”
James Hanley and Ballard MacDonald wrote “Back Home Again” in 1917 after they received permission from the publishers of “On the Banks of the Wabash,” written 20 years earlier, to use two bars of its music, said Clayton Henderson, a biographer of “Wabash” composer Paul Dresser.
Hanley and MacDonald borrowed a bit more than two bars, however. The refrain of their song parrots references to the song about the Wabash, a river that winds nearly the full length of Indiana.
Dresser died in 1906, and the Indiana Legislature in 1913 designated “Wabash” as the state song.
“Back Home Again” became a common jazz tune, frequently played by Louis Armstrong and others, but little attention was paid to the similarities between the two songs until the newer one was included in the 1940 film “Remember the Night.” Henderson said Dresser’s brother threatened to sue for copyright violation, but that effort was complicated by the agreement between the “Back Home Again” composers and Dresser’s publishing house. He eventually dropped the matter.
“I wonder whether a court would call it plagiarism these days. I suspect they might,” said Henderson, a retired music professor at St. Mary’s College in South Bend.
The 76-year-old Nabors lives in Hawaii following his days in the 1960s TV comedies “The Andy Griffith Show”
and “Gomer Pyle, USMC.” He has returned to sing at the Indy 500 nearly every May for the past 35 years — even bringing his doctor with him in 1994, months after undergoing a liver transplant.
The speedway plans to have Nabors address fans this year from the video boards around the track, and fans will be asked to sing “Back Home Again.”
Nabors says he plans to return for the race “as long as I can sing and they still want me.”

Posted by Tom at 01:43 AM | Permalink

Dancing off into a Memorial Day weekend with the media column and notes from today's Daily News, we have more to offer before settling in to see which of the three female drivers in Sunday's Indianapolis 500 will take each other out of the field:

==Back to today's story on Keyshawn Johnson's future at ESPN/ABC and Thursday's story about his retirement, Tony Kornheiser said it on Wednesday's "Pardon The Interruption" when Johnson was mention in the "happy trails" portion because of him leaving the NFL: "Personally, I'm of the opinion that Keyshawn would be outstanding in the booth on 'Monday Night Football,' but better than, oh, I don't know, me ..."

==Jamie Little, interviewing Dale Earnhardt Jr., above, before a recent NASCAR race at California Speedway in Fontana, is one of two female reporters (with Brienne Pedigo) working the pits on ABC's Indianapolis 500 coverage, as we wrote today. She handicapped the chances of the three female drivers in the race:
"The best part is that all three earned their way in. Danicamania has changed a bit from when she was a rookie two years ago, but this is probably Danica Patrick'sbest chance this year to win. Danica (pictured here) has a great car and great equipment. There's no reason for her not to do well. I'd put her in the top six if she doesn't win it. Sarah Fisher is also a great driver, but she's never been given the opportunities as Danica with her equipment. Maybe she's a top 12 finisher. Milka Duno (pictured below) is the real questionmark. She doesn't have any high expectations as a rookie. We'd just like to see her finish. She's passionate about the sport and was very impressive in Kansas (during her first Indy race) staying out of trouble."
Little, who has been covering motorsports since was 15, has gone to five racing schools and got her licence two years ago. But there's little chance Little would ever want to jump into an IndyCar field.
"Maybe some late-model racing if someone wanted to give me an opportunity," she said. "I just do it for run. I don't think ESPN would appreciate it much if I did it. They don't pay me for that. I ride a lot of dirt bikes, but I've changed my mentality of that over the years. ESPN has given me a great opportunity and responsibility, and I now think twice about doing stupid things that could get me hurt. I don't get paid for that."
For more on Little's career both on and off the track -- including shots of her on the cover of FHM magazine -- check out her website at this link.

==Jed Drake, the ESPN senior VP and executive producer, on the fact the Indy 500 is finally being televised in high-defintion: "The idea of doing it in HD has been with us for some time. Those who saw all of our qualifying coverage (the last two weekends) obviously saw what a difference HD makes for this event. When you have objects flying off the track at the speeds the cars can get to, you can always use a higher level of definition. The cars are easier to recognize, both on the track and in the pits, and from the sheer ratio aspect of going from 4x3 to 16x9, you see the vastness of the Indy excitement. Like everything, it was a financial consideration before we were finally able to use this. A track this size, using 44 cameras plus the on-board cameras, is enormously expensive and a major undertaking. We're thrilled we've finally made it a reality. We're more than ready for this moment." And the option of seeing Little and Pedigo in high-def has us ready to finally switch out satellite dishes.

We got more ....

==Marty Reid calls the race for the second year, with former NASCAR star Rusty Wallace as an analyst (also in his second Indy 500) and former Indy racer Scott Goodyear as the other analyst for the sixth year (after driving in 11 of them). Brent Musburger is looking live at everything as the show's host.
Wallace, who'll come off as the much louder of the two analysts, says he's still reminded of the fact last year when he was caught up in rookie Marco Andretti's near-win and said: "This is the most exciting Daytona 500 … I mean Indy 500 … I’ve ever seen.” Says Wallace: "That’s one thing that’s a defining moment in my television career that stuck in my mind. I’ve been a stock car guy for so long … a lot of people laughed about it, but I was really excited."
Wallace, on the three female drivers in the race and whether NASCAR would do well as a spectator sport to encourage more women competitors: "It's great to have females in the sport, especially if they run good. Danica has had a lot of resurgence, starting in the middle of the third row after a great run. She's got a ton of confidence. Sarah (pictured left) is looking good with a new sponsor. She's very focused and her mind is on the business. Milka ran prototype cars when she was training for this and they steer similar to the IndyCars. She's nervous and excited. I wish 'em all well. They're a great story. I do we we had more in NASCAR, too. But NASCAR is such a physically demanding race, where you're banging cars, and the field is bigger, and everyone's getting wrapped around and all heck is breaking loose. You really have to be commited to race NASCAR. You can't just plug in a female driver like they were talking of having Danica do last year. I feel it could be a career-breaker if she tried to do that. It takes a lot of time."
The Indy coverage continues today with Carburetion Day (ESPN2, 1 p.m.) ESPN2 will have the festival parade Saturday (2:30 p.m.) as well as a preview show Saturday at 5 p.m.
ABC's coverage Sunday begins with a prerace show at 9 a.m., with the race set to start at 10 a.m. ABC has covered the Indy 500 for 43 years, second only to CBS' relationship with the Masters as one network covering one sporting event in TV history.

==This week's top sports story via The Onion:

Roger Goodell Tightens Code Of Conduct After NFL Players Break His Priceless Vase

==XM Satellite Radio, which sponsors four IRL car, has extensive Indy 500 coverage on Channel 144. It started earlier this week with the "Andretti Green Racing Hour" recorded trackside at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Bryan Herta also has a blog at http://xmindy500.blogspot.com/
Thursday, XM also announced a new deal with Fox Sports to be the exclusive satellite radio network of the Bowl Championship Series, which Fox controls starting this year.

==ESPN2’s French Open coverage starting Sunday (9 a.m.) and goes through the June 7 women's semifinals life, covering about 52 hours. ESPN360.com (starting at 2 a.m. Sunday/late Saturday night) will have 70 hours live. Coverage starts generally each day at 9 a.m. after the Tennis Channel's morning programming and goes until 3:30 p.m. Dick Enberg will call his 21st French Open, along with Cliff Drysdale and analysts Darren Cahill, Mary Carillo, Mary Joe Fernandez and Patrick McEnroe. Chris Fowler will be the onsite host.

==The Tennis Channel announced a partnership with MLB Advanced Media, which handles all interactive media for Major League Baseball, to stream live matches and other content to the Tennis Channel’s website during the French Open starting Sunday. “Tennis is a perfect fit for broadband coverage because there are many matches other than the one on center court usually shown on television,” said Victoria Quoss, executive vice president of programming, network strategy for Tennis Channel. “Tennis Channel will help evolve the way the sport is covered, by allowing fans to see more matches and have more access to the players they want to see, but also, in doing so, allow us to grow both our business and the network’s brand.” The network plans to launch a more comprehensive video with the help of MLBAM from other tournaments, including the 2008 Australian Open. From Sunday to June 10, the Tennis Channel free preview airs on Channel 217 on DirecTV, with a French Open mult-screen presentation on Channel 216. The streaming video of live match coverage from Roland Garros at www.TennisChannel.com is free.

==If only to see the course and not necessarily those playing on it, NBC's coverage of the 68th Senior PGA Championship from the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, S.C. in high-def on Saturday and Sunday (noon to 3 p.m.), plus the Golf Channel today (10 a.m. to noon) is worth a look. "The Ocean Course is not like any other course we see on tour," said NBC analyst Gary Koch. "It's challenging for the players and very visually appealing for TV."

== NBC has taped coverage of the Championship Off Road Racing from the L.A. County Fairplex (Saturday, 2 p.m.) featuring NASCAR driver Robby Gordon; Carl Renezeder, looking for his 45th career win; and Dan Vanden Heuvel, who had nine Top 10 finishes last year. Bill Weber, Marty Snider and Kelli Stavast will call it.

==Matt Vasgersian and Mark Grace call the Cubs-Dodgers game from Dodger Stadium carried as a Fox regional contest (Saturday, 12:55 p.m.)

==KSPN-AM (710) has commitments to Angels coverage this week and can only carry Saturday’s San Antonio-Utah Game 3 of the Western Conference final (5:30 p.m.) after the Angels-Yankees game. The station plans to have all the NBA Finals games June 7-21, except for Game 3 (Tuesday, June 12) and Game 6 (Tuesday, June 19) because of Angels conflicts. The station is currently discussing options to farm that out to a sister station.

==TNT reports that its coverage of last Wednesday's San Antonio-Phoenix NBA playoff game drew nearly 5 million viewers and was the week's top-rated cable program with 3.7 million households. The bad news: What else was there to watch on cable last week aside from NHL playoff games that NBC didn't want?

==ESPNShop.com, in conjunction with NBAStore.com, launched the “Win With Walton” sweepstakes, giving fans a chance to win a trip for two to the upcoming NBA Finals and have lunch with ESPN’s Bill Walton. Fans can enter at www.espnshop.com or www.nbastore.com. The drawing will be June 1.

==In addition to ESPNEWS covering today's 4 p.m. weigh-in of the UFC 71 fight, ESPN has entered a cross-promotional and content integration agreement with Sherdog.com, the largest mixed martial arts site on the Internet. Sherdog, a part of CraveOnline.com, launched in 1997 providing news, information and analysis about every fight and athlete involved in MMA. Sherdog’s weekly online radio show will be offered at ESPNRadio.com and for download via the ESPN PodCenter.

==ESPN Classic's "Reel Classics Marathon" Sunday includes "Play It To The Bone" (10 a.m.); "The Color of Money" (12:30 p.m.); "3" (3 p.m.) and "Days of Thunder" (5 p.m.). Thanks, but we'd throw "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" on an endless loop for the 23rd time if we needed to kill 10 hours.

==The Miami Herald's Barry Jackson reports that Arena Football League commissioner David Baker has put the thought into the head of CBS sideline reporter Lesley Visser that she can become the first female president of an AFL team. Visser, who lives in Boca Raton, Fla., with husband/broadcaster Dick Stockton, has reportedly contacted some potential investors about fielding a team in Sunrise, Fla., at the same joint that houses the NHL's Florida Panthers. What would prevent Lindsay Soto from doing the same with the Avengers?

==This is tennis star Andy Roddick on the cover of the June/July issue of Men's Fitness. Or is it? Roddick, according to Deadspin.com, has written on his blog: “I’m not as fit as the Men’s Fitness cover suggests...little did I know I have 22 inch guns and a disappearing birth mark on my right arm. ... Maybe Rafael Nadal wants his arms back."

==Ned Jarrett, part of ESPN's NASCAR coverage for 15 years, will make a guest appearance alongside his son, Dale Jarrett, for the first time in the ESPN booth Saturday night (4:30 p.m.) during ESPN2’s live coverage of the NASCAR Busch Series race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Ned Jarrett was an auto racing analyst for ESPN from 1986 until the network ended its contract in 2000, leading to his retirement. Dale, an active Nextel Cup driver, is working on 10 Busch Series races for ESPN. “He asked my opinion before he agreed to do this,” Ned said. “I thought he was capable of doing it, and I felt he would be good for it and it would be good for ESPN. I feel that the best advice I can give anyone in TV is to listen to what’s being said and pay attention so that you’re not repeating what someone else has said. It helps to get into the rhythm and make a better contribution to the broadcast.”

==Tonight's ESPN2 "Friday Night Fights" (6 p.m.) originates from the D.C. Starplex/Armony in Washington, D.C. as ESPN's Teddy Atlas and Joe Tessitore will commemorate Memorial Day weekend by visiting those rehabbing at the Walter Reed National Army Medical Center. Brothers Anthony and Lamont Peterson, from the D.C. area, are on the card.

==The Sparks' WNBA game Saturday at Connecticut will be ABC's game of the week telecast (12:30 p.m.) with Dave Pasch, Doris Burke and Rebecca Lobo trying to sound interested.

==Canadian broadcasters CTV and Rogers Communication signed a three-year deal with the NFL that includes the rights to air the Super Bowl in Canada starting in 2009. Canadian network TSN will remain the home of the NFL's Sunday night, Monday night and late-season Thursday-Saturday night packages. Now if only a U.S. cable network could strike a deal for the CFL. How much more longer are we supposed to go without watching Damon Allen?

=And finally, following up on Stu Nahan's film career, based on Internet Movie Database resume, all brought to light because of the fact he's finally getting his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this morning, we wanted to make sure you realized he's not just the broadcaster from "Rocky" (1976, although he's not in the credits), "Rocky II" ('79), "Rocky III" ('82), "Rocky IV" ('85), "Rocky V" ('90) and finally in last year's "Rocky Balboa" (as the computer fight announcer). Or as Jeff Spicoli's dream broadcaster from "Fast Times at Ridgement High" ('82).
Remember, he was the banquet speaker in "Brian's Song" ('71), which, 10 years later, had to help prepare him for teamming up with Chick Hearn on "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island" ('81).
Skipper Stu (as he was known in his kid's show days in Sacramento, from the photo above) was the football announcer warning us all of a meteor heading our way in the movie, uh, "Meteor" ('79) with Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Henry Fonda and Martin Landau. That must have prepared him well for two flicks in 1990, first the non-smash comedy "Taking Care of Business," with Jim Belushi, then in the comedy-horror (that's what they called it) "Transylvania Twist" ('90), with Robert Vaughn.
A newscaster in the movie "Gus" ('76) with Ed Asner and Don Knotts, where the California Atoms hire a mule as a field-goal kicker, to an episode of the TV show "Son of a Beach" entitled "With Sex You Get Eggrolls" in 2000, with episodes of "Baywatch," "21 Jump Street" and "CHiPs" thrown in. Just an amazing range.
Don't take our word for it. As this link from Amazon.com shows, go "explore the works of Stu Nahan" for yourself.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

What other media columnists are writing about:
New York Times' Richard Sandomir, on the NHL's logic in switching a playoff game before it's over; along with a take from the San Diego Union Tribune's Jay Posner;
Long Beach Press Telegram's Bob Keisser on the curse of the NHL being on Versus;
And another by Sandomir on ESPN Radio's Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic.

Posted by Tom at 01:12 AM | Permalink

Based on our test-drive of the Dodgers' eat-everything-in-sight right-field pavilion deal last year, you've already seen our opionion.
Here's another angle, supplied by the Associated Press' Beth Harris, as to how it's going so far as a regular promotion:

Luis Serrano is working on his second Dodger Dog and the game hasn’t even begun.
“On a good night, I’ll eat seven,” he said, smiling.
That’s how it goes in the new all-you-can-eat seats way out in right field at Dodger Stadium, where fans wolf down as many Dodger Dogs, nachos, peanuts, popcorn and soda as their bellies allow for one price.
“You get your money’s worth, for sure,” said Serrano, a slender 33-year-old from Glendora who likes to bet his
buddies how much they can chow down. “I’ve won almost all of them,” he said, balancing a paper tray loaded with two more Dodger Dogs, nachos and peanuts on his lap.
His friend, Michael Latta of Alhambra, chomped on a mustard- and onion-slathered Dodger Dog in the right field pavilion, sponsored by, naturally, a chain of convenience stores.
“We’re more prone to eating more since we’re in here. We wouldn’t have done this over there,” Latta said, gesturing toward the rest of the stadium.
There’s another eat-up-a-storm section in this venerable place — the Dugout Club behind home plate. But at $400 a seat, which includes traditional fare delivered by a wait staff and a high-end buffet — it’s out of reach for many in the bust-a-gut section.
Launched officially this season, the outfield eat-a-thon opens 90 minutes before the first pitch and lasts until the start of the seventh inning. Ticket prices range from $20 for group sales to $40 for day-of-game walk-ups. Some games are $25 during designated promotions.
“The fans love it,” said Marty Greenspun, Dodgers executive vice president and chief operating officer.
“It was an isolated area that we could really focus and test. No one has done this big of a seating section for this price in all of professional sports. It’s been a hit since day one.”

Some items aren’t in play — beer ($8 and $10), ice cream and candy are sold from carts at regular prices. But they are included at some other major-league ballparks, which do versions of the eat-til-you-drop concept in smaller seating areas.
The concept was tested three times last season before being launched in April. Since then, the Dodgers say the section has sold out eight times in 24 home games, with attendance averaging 2,000 in the 3,000 seats.
The Dodgers have ranked second in attendance in the majors for three consecutive seasons, but the right-field
pavilion often sat empty in the 56,000-seat stadium. It opened only if the left-field seats, which cost $10, sold out or for large groups. Last season, right-field seats cost $6-to-$8.
“Even with our great attendance, there’s still seats that go unsold,” Greenspun said, explaining that this model was a way to offer fans a defined price.
Greenspun said a handful of other professional sports teams have contacted the Dodgers about copying the idea, including the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers. The Milwaukee Brewers sent their stadium operations chief to check it out.
Fans are allowed four items per trip to the food counters under the stands. Soda stations offer unlimited drinks and bottled water is free.
“Before, no one wanted to work here. It was a hassle,” said Joe Herrera, a 10-year stadium employee. “We used to have the registers and a lot of angry people backed up. Now, the lines go fast and customers don’t complain.”
At times during a recent game against the Brewers, lines were eight-deep as workers quickly handed over fistfuls of grub. The only registers are at the merchandise counter and beer carts.
“Who can turn down an all-you-can-eat?” asked Lori Nelson, who settled into the bench seats with her two children and her daughter’s 18-year-old boyfriend. “It’s like going to Vegas.”
The boyfriend, Joe Grable, started his evening with two hot dogs, two sodas and nachos. “Right here is
probably $30 worth,” he said. “This is awesome.”
In the rest of the stadium, Dodger Dogs sell for $4.75 and small sodas are $4.75.
Stadium vendors, including Coca-Cola, California Pizza Kitchen and Kraft, want to test their products on the right-field crowd, Greenspun said. Baby Ruth has already passed out free candy bars.
Liz Roseman of Gardena had one complaint.
“The only thing I’m missing is the chili,” she said, picking up a cheese-slathered nacho chip.
Greenspun doesn’t even try to spin the food frenzy so that it jibes with the nation’s increased emphasis on eating healthy.
“This is really not about gluttony,” he said. “This is really about offering a new fan amenity. It’s all up to individual
choices.”
On a recent night, the right-field seats were two-thirds full of fans merrily munching away, washing it all down with sodas and trotting back for more.
“It’s a trend that’s here to stay,” Greenspun said, “and is going to grow.”
Along with waistlines and cholesterol levels.

Posted by Tom at 06:04 PM | Permalink

By PAUL NEWBERRY
Associated Press
ATLANTA -- Spike Lee always has been an avid sports fan. Growing up in New York, he eagerly flipped past the front pages each morning, searching out the elegant musings of Red Smith or another abrasive rant from Dick Young.
But Lee wondered why a bunch of white guys were charged with shaping the viewpoints of people such as himself, an impressionable black kid eager for a balanced debate on such burning issues as: Who was the better player, Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays?
Mantle was white, Mays black.
“I would read stuff from people telling me Mickey Mantle was better than Willie Mays,” Lee remembered. “I was like, ‘Whoa, wait a minute. Noooo way.’ They would say, ‘Well, what if Mickey didn’t get hurt when he ran into that drain thing and tore his knee up?’ Yeah, well what about Willie Mays losing a year and a half to the Army?”
After Lee grew up to become one of the country’s most acclaimed directors, he noticed the increasing disparity between those who played the games and those who wrote about them. More and more athletes of color were starring on the court and between the goal posts, but the press box remained largely the domain of white males.
It’s a playing field that Lee hopes to level through a new sports journalism program at his alma mater, historically black Morehouse College near downtown Atlanta.
Lee, pictured here with Rutgers University women's basketball coach Vivian Stringer during a panel discussion regarding the black athlete held at Moorehouse College on May 7, has raised some $1 million to get it going, and insists this isn’t some trivial matter in the greater cause of diversity.
From Jesse Owens to Jackie Robinson to Muhammad Ali, black athletes often have steered America to a more accepting view of race.

(AP Photo/John Amis)
Miami Heat's Alonzo Mourning, second from left, speaks while fellow panelists, journalist Jason Whitlock, left, Atlanta Falcons football player Alge Crumpler, third from left, Washington Wizards' Etan Thomas, and journalist Stephen Smith, right, listen during a panel discussion moderated by Spike Lee, regarding the black experience in athletics and how they are portrayed in the media, held at Morehouse College on May 7

“I’ve always had this argument with people — I would say shortsighted individuals — who underplay the importance of sports,” said Lee, who often can be found courtside at New York Knicks games and is an avid baseball and soccer fan. “Many of the social gains this country has gone through took place in sports before they took place with the rest of the public.”
But Lee and others still are waiting for a revolution to take place in the very industry that reports on the games, casts judgments from the locker room and largely shapes how the average fan views a Barry Bonds or Michael Vick.
A study released last summer at the request of the Associated Press Sports Editors found dismal figures for the industry. Blacks held only 6.2 percent of the sports writing jobs. Out of more than 300 newspapers surveyed, just five had a black sports editor.
By contrast, nine out of 10 sports editors were white males, as were 84 percent of sports columnists, according to Richard Lapchick, who runs the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.
“We never really look at ourselves,” said William Rhoden, a black columnist for The New York Times. “But a lot
of athletes are beginning to look. They are starting to say, ‘What kind of prism are you filtering me through?’ That’s not to say that people in our industry are bad people. But it’s really a form of apartheid — a modern-day journalistic apartheid that is just unacceptable.”
Lee hopes the new sports journalism program at Morehouse will make a difference. It won’t happen overnight, of course, with the initial goal of getting students into the job pipeline through internships, then growing the curriculum
into a minor within four years. It likely will be at least twice as long before the program can think of becoming a full-fledged major.
Still, it’s a start. And considering only a handful of other schools even offer sports journalism, Lee is looking to make a major impact.
“My goal is to have people come out of this program who can write anywhere. Not just sports,” he said.
On this day, Lee has come to Atlanta to introduce the new director of the program, longtime sports journalist Ron
Thomas, and moderate a seminar on the state of the black athlete.
Dressed in a striped rugby shirt with the logo for his “40 Acres and a Mule” production company and the mantra “Defend Brooklyn,” the outspoken director holds court in the lobby of a downtown hotel, harping on a white-dominated media that he believes always has slanted its coverage against minorities.
Early on, Lee pulls out a photocopied article, a USA Today cover story from last month in which the newspaper ran row after row of mugshot-style photos to illustrate a story on how the NFL planned to crack down on wayward players.
All but two of the faces in those photos were black, including Tennessee’s Adam “Pacman” Jones (suspended for a year by the league for numerous run-ins with police) and Chicago’s Tank Johnson (sentenced to four months in jail for violating probation).
But Lee was struck when he saw the picture of a friend, linebacker Dhani Jones, who was arrested more than a year ago when he allegedly refused to stop dancing outside a South Beach nightclub.
“I’m not going to make excuses for the Pacmans of the world, Tank Johnson and those guys,” said Lee, whose films include “Do The Right Thing” and “Malcolm X.”
“I just think, historically, the black athlete has been demonized. If we can get our graduates into these positions with
newspapers, magazines and television stations ... hopefully we’ll get a more balanced view.”
Lee is seeking up-and-comers such as 20-year-old Fabian Cook, a junior who covers track and field for the Morehouse student newspaper. He’s planning a career in sports management and only wishes the journalism program had started sooner.
“My first thought when I saw it was: ‘If they had that on the application when I came to Morehouse, it sure would have been my major,’” Cook said. “I would be honored to be a black journalist. There’s not a lot of them.”
Terence Moore would know. A columnist for more than two decades at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he still feels like an outsider when covering events such as Southeastern Conference football games.
“One of the best-kept secrets in sports is how you have all these African-Americans playing sports, but so few African-Americans covering sports,” he said. “I’m generally one of the few — and many times, the only — African-American in the press box. That has got to have a huge impact on how the news is presented.”
Moore points to a recently released survey that found blacks are far more eager than whites for Bonds to break
Hank Aaron’s career home run record.
Even though Bonds and Aaron both are black, and Bonds is linked to baseball’s long-running steroids scandal, Moore believes black fans are expressing their outrage at one-sided coverage of the whole affair.
Last year, Hall of Famer-to-be Roger Clemens was accused of using performance-enhancing drugs. He denied it, and the whole issue quietly faded away. Last week, the 44-year-old pitcher made a celebrated return to the New York Yankees, agreeing to a $28 million contract.
Clemens, of course, is white.
“People are missing the reason that 74 percent of blacks want Bonds to break the record,” Moore said. “When white athletes are in trouble or on the verge of being in trouble, the media goes way further in giving them a break than black athletes. That’s very, very apparent.”
Thomas, the Morehouse program’s new director, hopes his teaching will deliver a takedown to some of the racial stereotypes that still creep into newspapers or onto the internet.
He singles out a prevailing attitude that black athletes naturally are gifted but lacking mentally, while whites are not as talented but get by with brains and hard work. It was perpetuated most recently in the NFL draft, when quarterbacks JaMarcus Russell and Brady Quinn were among the top prospects.
Russell is black. Quinn is white. Even though Russell was the No. 1 overall pick, many of the so-called draft experts
questioned how he would adapt to the mental rigors of a pro-style offense. There were no such reservations about Quinn, whose lack of physical skills supposedly were the reason he slipped to late in the first round.
“It’s unfair to the black athlete, who has put so much work into achieving the excellence he has achieved,” Thomas said. “On the other hand, it’s unfair to the white athletes, who also must have terrific talent or they couldn’t compete on the playing field.”
Etan Thomas, who plays for the Washington Wizards in the predominantly black NBA, said there’s plenty of unspoken distrust between those on the court and the largely white media.
“You can tell in their articles, the things they’re saying, how they interpret certain situations, that they just don’t understand us,” the black center said. “But it’s hard.”
He remembers visiting a camp that brings together Israeli and Palestinian children, and how he struggled to comprehend the fears, prejudices and hatreds on both sides.
“I can’t understand that, and it would be almost ridiculous to think I could,” the Wizards player said. “You can read about it, talk to people, but you’re not fully going to understand it if you didn’t experience it growing up.”
Lee also is looking to overcome some of the resistance in his own community. He wants to see more young blacks
aspiring to cover the games, not just play them.
“Not everybody can hit the gene pool, DNA lottery,” said Lee, who didn’t hit it himself. “Only a couple of people, very
special people, are going to make it to the pro level. But you can still have a career in sports and not play.”

Posted by Tom at 10:10 AM | Permalink

There was a story in Playboy magazine, maybe 20 years ago, that featured interviews with many of the top male pro beach volleyball players of that time, focusing on their wild, parting lifestyle.
The last quote of the piece came from the tour's perfect spokesman at the time, Tim Hovland , who provided the punchline: "The only thing we're sure about is that someday we'll all die from skin cancer."
Today's pro beach players on the AVP Tour may not be laughing as much.
It was a fairly overcast day Saturday in Hermosa Beach -- the days we call June Gloom, except it was making a miserable May appearance.
"Overcast days are the worst," said men's ranked AVP player John Hyden. "That's when people think the sun isn't out. It's not true."
Eventually, the sun crept through, and it was a beautiful beach day by 11 a.m. Tour sponsors Banana Boat and SolarSafe were handing out their products, for free, at their booths, amidst the festive atmosphere.

Following up to our story in today's Daily News about the increasing results of sun exposure on a sport that sells the sun as one of the cool, hip things about its lifestyle, we have more Q-and-A from others who've talked about their brushes with skin cancer:

Karch Kiraly, the all-time winningest pro beach player who is retiring after this season, admits that the thought of having skin cancer isn't on his radar.
“I can’t say it’s a big issue,” the 46-year-old old from San Clemente via Santa Barbara said.
Kiraly is definitely "old school" in his ignorance-is-bliss thinking. He'll tell you about how he grew up thinking he had to get to the beach for "our beginning of summer burn, then peal it off, do it again, and finally get a nice brown coat."
Sun screen? Why?
"You look at the first generation of surfers in the '60s, all pre-sun screen," Kiraly said. "None of us had that. We all got burns a couple of times a year, and we dealt with it. Life has risks, and it wouldn't be worth living if we tried to eliminate all of them. All the time we've spent out here eventually may catch up to us."
As for the statistics that show skin cancer on the rise, or that global warming is causing a lot of today's issues, Kiraly didn't sound very startled.
"First, I don't associate any of this with global warming; there are huge question marks there," he said. "I don't see higher cancer rates worrisome. I think it's a function of having a great time on Earth. We're living, at least in the U.S., double the life expectancy. We're the longest living generation in humanity. With all forms of cancer, if you catch it early, there's a great rate of recovery. And the medical technology is better. I think the reason cancer rates go up is that people are living longer.
“I have almost zero to complain or worry about in a sport that’s given many of us some wonderful opportunities. (Worry of skin cancer) is probably low on the list of concerns for many players and management. I don’t know if it should be higher.”
It is for John "The H-Bomb" Hyden, a 34-year-old Sherman Oaks resident from San Diego State, who has a wife, Robyn, and nearly 1-year-old daughter Samantha.
The two-time Olympic indoor player says "it's crazy" how much time he spends in the sun. That sort of changed when he recently became more aware of how many trips he was making to the dermatologist to have moles examined.
"I have a ton of moles, and some of them are mishaped and miscolored," he said. "I have to watch over them. Every year, I ask my wife to look at them and see if she thinks they're different. Usually, they are and we end up having the doctor take them off."
Last year, Hyden was actually the partner of Jeff Nygaard, who recently found out he needed a patch of melanoma skin taken out of his left upper arm.
"Most dermatologists say you should be wearing sun screen all day no matter what you do," said Hyden. "You gotta be careful with everything. I hope we're getting the word out more compared to back in the day. There's a lot more research done and people should know more about it."
Hyden is one of several AVP players who endorse wearing the SolarSafe bracelet, which changes colors as the sun's UV rays become more dangerous to warn people it's time to either reapply sun screen or get into the shade as soon as possible.
"It's something I'm getting used to wearing, just having your ankles taped," said Hyden. "It fits tight on the wrist so it doesn't get in the way. The great thing is how it tells you to put the sunscreen over it, and when its changing, it's doing the same thing as your skin is."
Nygaard, whose early-stage melanoma story is featured in today's Daily News, admits he's become more educated about skin safety after talking more about the subject with John Lyons, co-chairman of SolarSafe USA. The company has recently become an official AVP sponsor. It has been available for years in Europe, particularily England, where overcasts days are normal and people don't realize how easy it is to burn.
As long as you can cast a shadow, there's UV rays coming down.
"This all stems from a personal connection; my father died of melanoma 15 months ago after years of working as a Sacramento homicide policeman, where he had plenty of near-death experiences on the job," said Lyons.
"You look at the culture surrounding the AVP: People between 20-to-50, fit, but they don't wear a uniform and hardly ever cover up. There's a lot of coolness and pride that goes with that. The sun really is colorblind. There are a surprisingly number of diagnosed skin-cancer patients who are Latinos now, and its discovered later in life, leading to higher number of deaths."
Lyons is trying, in addition to increasing awareness of on the beach, to reach baseball fans and golfers with his product. While the AVP has no formal policy about the safety of its fans from the sun's rays -- it might be nice to put more shade tents for those fans sitting in the main stadium who've been saving their seats all day and are afraid to move for fear of losing it -- Lyons noticed during a trip he made to Kansas City to see a Royals game that there's a real need for further education.
"Who's responsible, the teams?" Lyons asked about liabilty issues. "Hopefully, they realize what's going on and make sunscreen available easily."
“To me all starts in the morning, when the families head outside and ask themselves the question, 'How much damage (to my skin) will be done today?'" said Lyons. "Sun safe habits can't help but bring more awareness of sun screen use. If our product help changes habits, it's helped change that culture of thinking.
"The sun isn't changing anytime soon."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

More information:
=The National Cancer Institute's link to statistics on skin cancer.
=The American Cancer Society's information on skin cancers.
=A story on the Reuters news service headlined: People still ignore skin cancer warnings.
=A recent column in the Orange County Register about AVP and its sun-drenched dangers, including interviews with Jake Gibb, Elaine Youngs and Nygaard, before he was ready to talk about his melanoma treatment.
=A story on the AVP.com site about Dr. Julie Romias.

Posted by Tom at 01:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you saw our story about the first Dodger Stadium sleep-over promotion last season and were interested in taking part this year, the Dodgers have announced that Friday, July 27 will be the date to save this year.
The twist this year is that it won't be after a Dodgers home game. Instead, you'll be able to watch the Dodgers play Colorado from Coors Field on the Diamondvision board (a 6 p.m. start) and then have a movie, the latest remake of "The Sandlot," afterward.
For that, we give it an even bigger stamp of approval. One of the not-so-cool elements of last year's event was having all that garbage from the previous Sunday afternoon game left sitting in the stands all night, and then the cleaning crew showed up at the crack of dawn to start banging around and sweeping it up, causing a whole other racket.
This way, the stadium's quiet and clean from start to finish.
Having it start on a Friday and ending Saturday should work much better, too, for those who had to get up Monday morning and head to work last year.
“Last season’s sleepover event was a tremendous success and the feedback confirmed that we should bring the event back this year,” said Dodger Chief Operating Officer Marty Greenspun said in a statement released by the team. “Dodger Stadium is a great place to create memories and we are excited to continue cultivating unique opportunities like this.”
The price of the event is $200 per adult, $100 per kid. There's also a $500 package for two adults and two kids 14 and under, which includes a goodie bag, dinner, buffet breakfast and a Dodger pillow.
The first 500 who sign up by July 1 will be admitted.
To register: www.dodgers.com/sleepover
And to revisit our experience, here's a link back to the blog entry from last July

Posted by Tom at 07:54 AM | Permalink

On Buck Martinez' XM Radio "MLB Home Plate" show Friday morning, guest Tim McCarver had an interesting idea: Why not raise the height of the pitcher's mound.
Why?
“I’ve been lobbying baseball unofficially for the last decade and a half to have the mound raised back to its initial 15 inches," McCarver said. "To me, it’s an easy sell. You would have fewer arm injuries because pitchers are pitching down a slope instead of from a flatter surface. Trying to keep down, you leave yourself open to arm injuries. I think that’s one of the reasons baseball has had so many pitchers on the disabled list over the last 10 to 15 years…plus, the pitching in the majors is just horrible now. Middle relief is horrible on almost all teams.”
We're sold. Surely, Bob Gibson would attempt a comeback, too.

Posted by Tom at 05:17 PM | Permalink

Men with sticks stick together.
Which is why you need to be warned: If you're going to Sharkeez bar in Manhattan Beach on Saturday morning, May 26, bring a weapon.
The L.A. Riptide, our local Major League Lacrosse affiliate, is having a "viewing party" at the place for the NCAA men's lacrosse national semifinals. Doors open at 9 a.m.
Players and coaches from the Riptide will be there to explain to curious onlookers just what the heck is going on.

Posted by Tom at 05:03 PM | Permalink

Will Calvin Borel be able to steer Street Sense on the rail again to win Saturday's Preakness (3:15 p.m. posttime) and give the NBC viewers another good cry?
How many times will Barbaro's name resurface? (Odds are good that the over/under is seven). Does NBC dare show last year's tragedy again? (Not if it wants a heap of criticism).
There's only eight other thoroughbreds to scoot around the Baltimore track this week for Street Sense, and a potential Triple Crown winner is always a good enough angle to get eyeballs on the TV for a least two minutes.
In addition to the stuff we shoveled into the Daily News column and notebook for Friday, here's other pieces of news, not much in stable condition, but with a pulse:

== ESPN and ESPN2 has nine additional hours (to NBC's two hours) of the Preankess, including the Black Eyed Susan Stakes (today, 1 p.m., ESPN2) and five hours from the race starting at 9 a.m. Saturday (ESPN), hosted by Kenny Mayne and Rece Davis. Also, NBC2GO, a channel on the Verizon Wireless V Cast Mobile TV service, will do first-time live streaming of an event from the Preakness. "NBC Sports is committed to bringing our content to fans wherever they are, so we're excited to launch our first live mobile broadcast with the Preakness Stakes," said Perkins Miller, Senior VP Digital Media, NBC Sports and Olympics, said in a statment. NBC2Go, part of the FLO TV ™ service from MediaFLO USA, Inc., is available to Verizon Wireless V Cast Mobile TV customers in 30 markets, including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Las Vegas and Atlanta. For a complete market map, check out www.verizonwireless.com/mobiletv.

==The NBC analysts have their picks for the Preakness:
Bob Neumeier: 1. Circular Quay 2. Street Sense 3. Curlin. "I like Circular Quay to bounce back after a disappointing Derby. He was coming off an eight week layoff, and I think he needed the conditioning of that race. That's not a knock against Street Sense; he could easily win the Preakness. Curlin had a bit of a bad trip in the Derby, I think he's going to run well on Saturday. I don't like Hard Spun this week. I think there are other front speed horses like Xchanger and Flying First Class who might soften him up near the lead."
Mike Battaglia: 1. Hard Spun 2. Street Sense 3. Curlin. "It's a flip of the coin - I thought Street Sense got such a great trip in the Derby, if he had had even a little bit of trouble, Hard Spun would have won the race. Also, Hard Spun is the better price, so there is more value."
Gary Stevens: 1. Street Sense 2. Hard Spun 3. Circular Quay. "I have no reason to shy away from Street Sense after his Derby win last week, but it won't be a walkover for him. Pimlico plays a little more favorably to speed horses, but Street Sense will be tough to catch. Todd Pletcher has never had a Derby starter run in the Preakness, but Circular Quay was coming off of an eight week layoff, and the Derby could actually work as a prep race for him for the Preakness."

Read on to saddle up with more notes ...

==Following up on our story in the Daily News about the World Series starting later this year, possibily fielding a Game 7 on Nov. 1, Fox Sports media relations man Dan Bell pointed out that, as for potential weather problems, early November is on the average 15 degrees higher than when baseball begins its season in April. “You want to see cold?" Bell asked. "How about the All-Star game in July in San Francisco."
The Sports Business Daily earlier in the week measured the initial reaction to the MLB postseason announcement with a "Sports Blog Index," giving the topic a "4" on a scale of 1-to-10 (higher number the better) on how much buzz it generated. It determined that 75 percent of the blogs it surveyed responded negatively about the news, 4 percent were positve and 21 percent were neutral. A typical argument, expressed on the blog Sports Frog: "For a league that is taking criticism for starting the year with some bizarre cold-weather park scheduling, this is a curious move. I love the way the decision will play if Detroit, Cleveland, or another cold location, makes it to the Fall Classic. Old men who type newspaper columns will be spilling their black coffee all over their rotary phones in a race to rant about such atrocities. P.S. The problem of games going well past midnight is unaddressed in the article. I give a hearty "screw you" on behalf of my class of sixth-graders for that one."

==The Sports Business Journally reports that baseball's owners Thursday approved the league’s contracts with DirecTV and 35 other MSOs for the distribution of the Extra Innings out-of-market package and launch of the MLB Network. The channel has a planned start of January 1, 2009, with early plans to carry 26 live, non-exclusive MLB games on Saturday nights. The channel is two-thirds owned by MLB, with 16.67% of the equity held by DirecTV and the remaining amount split proportionally between InDemand partners Comcast, Time Warner and Cox.

==Not that it's overkill or anything, but ESPN says it will "offer multi-platform coverage" of Roger Clemens making his Single-A start for Tampa against Fort Myers tonight from 4 to 5:30 p.m. ESPN2 will throw Clemens on for every inning he pitches, using Steve Berthiaume as the host and actually having three analysts -- Steve Phillips, Tim Kurkjian and Orestes Destrade -- providing verbiage of his performance. In addition, the entire game live on ESPN360.com and ESPN Mobile TV; ESPNEWS has a simulcast of ESPN360.com’s coverage while Clemens is pitching, then switching over to "other" news, information and highlights when Tampa is at-bat, and ESPN.com will have in-progress highlights via ESPN Mobile Properties.
The ESPN deal with Verizon was reached this week, which means that all the stuff ESPN mobile phone service used to offer will resurface with the Verizon Wireless V Cast network ($15 a month) as ESPN MVP. More info: www.verizonwireless.com/espn.
ESPN also says it has launched its first free, downloadable video podcasts available daily via the ESPN PodCenter and soon to be available via the iTunes Store. The first video podcast offerings include a downloadable version of the ESPN.com SportsCenter Minute, the “Big Finish” from ESPN’s Pardon The Interruption (PTI), the “First Word” segment from ESPN’s Around The Horn, ESPN Digital Media’s “Fantasy Focus” daily original fantasy sports news and analysis program (also available daily on ESPN.com and ESPN Mobile TV), and the “Mike & Mike Moment” from the popular morning radio and television program. Each podcast is between two and seven minutes long in MPEG-4 format. Check it out at http://espnradio.espn.go.com/espnradio/podcast/index.

==The next ESPN "Outside the Lines" installment (Sunday, 6:30 a.m., ESPNEWS, 9 a.m.) sounds more like a Mother's Day visit with Mary Lou Retton, the former American gymnastics darling who now, at 39, has four kids in Houston married to former Texas Longhorns quarterback Shannon Kelley. Oh, and Retton's two daughters are gymnasts. “I'm not an idiot. I am extremely sensitive to the fact that I am their mother, and that they would have that shadow of me follow them around if they were to choose that road to go on to the higher levels of gymnastics," said Retton, who won the all-around gold medal at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles -- particularily, at Pauley Pavilion. "I worry about if they were to take that Olympic challenge, and if they were to make the Olympic team, and not win an Olympic gold medal, would the media, would society place them as a failure? I always ask them constantly: ‘Are you sure this is what you want to do? Don’t do it for me.’” The daughters train at a nearby gym for four hours a day, five days a week.

==The NBA Draft Lottery, which does not involve players becoming suspended if they leave the bench early, will be on ESPN in a 90-minute (yawn) show Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. live from the NBA TV's studios in New Jersey. Fred Hickman will host with Greg Anthony, Jay Bilas and Mark Jones available with smelling salts if the Boston Celtics win and announce they're all but taking whoever Danny Ainge happens to be sitting next to: Greg Oden or Kevin Durant.

==CSTV will re-air (Sunday, 11 a.m.) the 2007 NCAA women’s water polo championship to commemorate UCLA’s 100th NCAA team championships. UCLA edged top-seeded Stanford 5-4 to win its second consecutive women’s water polo championship. Also, CSTV has the Collegiate Beach Volleyball Championships today, Saturday and Sunday (6 p.m.), featuring two-team women's players from Nebraska, Stanford, Penn State, Minnesota, Texas, Florida, San Diego and Cal Poly -- none from UCLA, USC, Pepperdine or Cal State Northridge? The event was staged in San Diego and AVP star Holly McPeak does the analysis with play-by-play man Chris McGee. More info: http://www.cstv.com/getcstv/.

== EPSN announced the 12th annual Winter X Games are set for Aspen/Snowmass, Colo., for the seventh year in a row, Jan. 24-27, 2008.

==ABC's coverage of the "WNBA Basketball Presented by Shrek the Third" -- that's officially what they're calling it -- starts Saturday with Detroit-Sacramento. Shock coach Bill Laimbeer, celebrating his 50th birthday, will be interviewed live during the game, as will Monarchs coach Jenny Bouchek. Dave Pasch does play-by-play with Doris Burke and Heather Cox. ESPN2 has set aside Tuesday nights for its weekly game, starting with Sacramento-Washington.

==Those awaiting the arrival of the Tennis Channel on DirecTV must also know that Dish Network has had the network for about a year now (Channel 400).

== The FA Cup final between Manchester United and Chelsea on Saturday morning (7 a.m.) is a $15.95 pay-per-view buy on DirecTV, Dish and InDemand. ESPN2 has the Champions League final live on Wednesday (11:45 a.m.).

==After NBC carries the Ducks-Detroit Game 5 (Sunday, noon), the more intriguing storyline involves Shannon Elizabeth, (above, in happier days) and whether she can keep her seat in the National Heads-Up Poker Championship from Caesars Palace in Las Vegas (Sunday, 3 p.m.) The actress has "defied the odds" -- says the NBC press release -- to beat poker legends and advance to the semifinals of this taped event. The winner of the final will receive $500,000 and the runner-up $250,000.

=Oh, about that hockey game ...
NBC has Mike Emrick, Eddie Olczyk and Pierre McGuire doing both the Ducks-Detroit Game 5 Sunday after doing the Buffalo-Ottawa Game 5 on Saturday. Says McGuire on Detroit's Nicklas Lidstrom: "With all due respect to Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer, Nicklas Lidstrom is the best pure defenseman in the league and the MVP of the playoffs so far. He is virtually unbeatable."
After these two games, NBC goes dark until Games 3-7 of the Stanley Cup finals. Versus has everything up until that.

== Orlando Magic player Grant Hill has been added to ABC's NBA pre-game show with Dan Patrick, Michael Wilbon and Jon Barry (Sunday, noon, prior to Game 7 of the San Antonio-Phoenix series, or Game 1 of the Western Conference finals that would be between San Antonio and Utah). Hill is also slotted to work in the studio for the Saturday, May 26 Western Conference game telecast that ESPN will be doing. Jeff Van Gundy, who, for the time being remains the Houston Rockets coach, has been added to the NBA playoffs coverage on ABC and ESPN. He'll start with the Mike Breen-Mark Jackson team on tonight's telecast. The Rockets lost in the first round of the playoffs to Utah in a seven-game series after going 52-30 in the regular season. Van Gundy worked with Turner Sports as a game analysts on its NBA broadcasts during the 2002-03 season.

==CBS has the first of a two-part series that seems better suited for the Physics Channel. "The Science of Golf: Power Game," produced by the PGA Tour, airs Saturday (11 a.m., prior to third-round coverage of the PGA's AT&T Classic from Georgia) and tries to answer questions as to what makes a golf ball spin, bounce, bump and run and sink to the bottom of a lake (sorry, that's my interjection based on experience). Momentum, inertia and centrifiugal forces make players like Woods and Mickelson the modern-day Newton and Galileo with a dimpled ball. Enhanced video production and computerized software will try to give viewers a visual answer to these and other probing questions asked of scientists, instructors and PGA Tour pros. Part two of this series will air Sunday, May 27 (11 a.m., before the final-round coverage of the PGA's Crowne Plaza Invitational from Texas) that analyzes more of the short game swings and modern teaching methods.
By the way, even CBS is bored with the PGA event that won't have Woods, Michelson or anyone worth noting (Masters champ Zach Johnson is about as good as it comes). As such, Bill Macatee and Ian Baker-Finch assume the roles of Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo in the 18th hole tower. Peter Oosterhuis, Gary McCord, Bobby Clampett, David Feherty and Peter Kostis missed the memo on taking vacation time.

==NBC reports that more than 5 million viewers saw Phil Mickelson's Mother's Day victory at The Players last Sunday, an increase of one million from last year, when the event was held in late March. On Mother's Day? When mom won't let anyone watch sports? C'mon....

==Not that we're going to any stretch to find anything new about Carolyn Hughes, the former Fox Sports Net reporter who couldn't help herself and became part of the Derek Lowe story two years ago. But when Petros Papadakis went on a spirited rant against her, a former TV colleague, it gave us cause to wonder how soon it'll be that her name resurfaces again as some kind of divisive force on the Dodgers. Papadakis, on Wednesday's "PMS" show he co-hosts with Matt "Money" Smith on AM-570, said he had it on good authority that Hughes not only makes every road trip with Lowe and the Dodgers (flying commercially), but she was seen outside the team's locker room in Florida openly weeping after Lowe gave up a three-run walk-off homer, ending a scoreless game in the bottom of the ninth. "She's a lovely lady, and my apologies to her, but what did it for me was hearing about her crying outside the lockerroom," said Papadakis. "If I'm on the Dodgers, and we lose a game, and I go outside the clubhouse and see her in tears, I'm pissed off. The teams go on the road to bond. The others players' families don't go on every road trip. They go on one, maybe two a year. Why should she be on every trip? She's with the team more than the McCourts and Ned Coletti. What business does she have being there? A team goes on the road to bond. This can't be good for the rest of Derek Lowe's teammates. I've talked to ex-major leaguers about this culture of baseball, and here's someone who was removed from her job because of an inappropriate relationship, and now it freaks the rest of the players out to see her everywhere. I don't wait to air their laundry. She's a nice person. But how does Derek Lowe win in this situation? He can't tell her to stay home. But he can't have her keep coming around. That ain't right."

==Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant and Lennox Lewis call HBO's Jermain Taylor-Cory Spinks and Edison Miranda-Kelly Pavlik fights Saturday (7:15 p.m.) from Memphis, Tenn. An announcement is expected soon if Merchant will stay with the HBO team or accept a new, lower-profile role with the network. For our money, replace him. It's sad to hear him drone on during a boxing telecast, sounding almost worst than a boxer suffering from too many blows. Not that Max Kellerman is the best answer, but at least Max keeps the audience alive.

==ESPNU has the NCAA Division I softball championship coverage from UCLA this weekend, doing up to 12 of the possible 21 regional and super regional games. Beth Mowins and Jessica Mendoza are on the call for Loyola Marymount-UCLA (tonight, 5 p.m.)

==And finally, at something called an "upfront" presentation for advertisers in New York, attempting to generate sales before the shows actually hit the air, ESPN unveiled some of the programming it plans to have this fall. They include:
"ESPN Reports" (just a working title) that will debut October 16 as a recurring primetime news magazine show "dedicated to cutting-edge sports journalism" with Tom Farrey, Rachel Nichols, Lisa Salters, Jeremy Schaap and Michael Smith. Except that Bill Simmons will also contribute features.
"The SportsCenter Minute on ABC" will debut in September as an hourly sports update on ABC programming.
"The Moto X World Championships" are a new event from the ESPN X Games team that take the best Moto X riders in the world and compete in Freestlye, Super Moto, Best Trick and Step Up. The inaugural event is scheduled to take place in April 2008 at a site to be announced.
"This is SportsCenter 300" is an actual series of original specials airing on Tuesdays in September that "will celebrate the 300th commercial in the award-winning “This is SportsCenter” promo campaign, now in its 14th year." So, yes, its a series about advertisements promoting ESPN. Can it get much more narcistic? (And here's a link to the video vault....) And how 'bout that Charley Steiner?
For a more charming presentation of this whole ESPN pie-in-the-sky programming, see Michael Hiestand's USA Today media column from Wednesday.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Among the other notable media columns from around the country:
San Diego Union-Tribune's Jay Posner, on Padres play-by-play man Matt Vasgersian calling it "ignorant" and a "disservice" to viewers to suggest that announcers shouldn't mention a no-hitter in progress after a recent 5 1/3 inning no hit stint by Greg Maddox
USA Today's Michael McCarthy all agog over how athletes are trying to become more reality-show savvy.
New York Times' Richard Sandomir, on why the Mets-Yankees interleague series makes for national importance, no matter what the records are.
Miami Herald's Barry Jackson, on the amazing career of Dr. Jack Ramsey.

Posted by Tom at 12:15 AM | Permalink

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Bob L. Head wants your vote.
Robert Leroy Head of Maquoketa, Iowa, was selected as one of three finalists for a minor-league baseball
promotion that will immortalize a real Bob L. Head with a bobblehead.
“I never put it together until they sent me this letter,” Head said. “My wife and I thought it was a joke.”
The Portland Beavers, the Triple-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres, sent letters to every Bob L. Head they could find, including Roberts and Robertos.
The team explained its promotion, then asked the Bobs to submit an essay explaining why they should be cast as a miniature, head-bobbing figurine.
On the line was a trip to Portland, and of course, a personal bobblehead.
The team narrowed the list down to three, and now fans can vote for their favorite Bob L. Head: The aforementioned Robert Leroy Head of Iowa; Bob Louis Head from Vallejo, Calif.; and Bob Lee Head of Evansville, Ind.
Bob Louis Head’s campaign slogan: “No matter what the score, I am always a Head.”
The team will give away the bobbleheads to the first 2,000 fans who attend the Beavers’ game against the Las Vegas 51s on Aug. 18.
Fan voting for the best Bob L. Head opened Wednesday on the Beavers’ Web site, www.portlandbeavers.com. It closes on May 31 and fans can only vote once.
An hour after the three finalists were announced, already 230 fans had cast their vote, said Chris Metz, communications director for the Beavers. The runners-up will receive consolation prizes for their effort.

Posted by Tom at 04:11 PM | Permalink

The Dodgers' press notes for tonight's game includes this fact:
-- In Randy Wolf’s last start on Friday, Nomar Garciaparra did not record a single putout in a complete nine-inning game.
He is the 24th first baseman in Major League history ,and first player in Dodger franchise history, to accomplish that feat.
(Question: Is it an accomplishment when you don't do anything?)
The last big leaguer this happened to was Raul Ibañez on April 18, 2005, who played eight innings in the field that day, as did eight others on the list.
But Garciaparra is one of just 16 first basemen to play nine full innings without recording a putout in a big league game.
Other former Dodgers to share the record: Dolph Camilli, Bud Clancy, Gary Thomasson, Bill Skowron, Frank Robinson, Len Matuszek, Franklin Stubbs, Fred McGriff and Greg Brock, though none actually did it in a Dodger uniform.
(Point in fact: I believe I saw Olmedo Saenz play one full inning without recording a putout, despite the fact there were three ground balls hit to infielders. Their throws, maybe an inch wide of first base in each instant, pulled Saenz off the bag, resulting in a throwing error. The result, of course, is Saenz didn't record the putout...
OK, we're making that up... Sorta)

It helped that Wolf, not known for inducing ground balls, struck out 11 in his seven innings, plus two more by two relievers. That made for 14 other outs to be made. Six were flyballs to the outfield. Five were popouts to the infield. Three were fielder's choice outs made at second instead of throws to first. And the team gave up only five hits. Imagine how many outs were made at first in a game like the 20-strike out performance Roger Clemens had way back wiith the Red Sox, when there was the opportunity for only seven outs to be made elsewhere.
Just for those (like us) who are curious, here's how the 27 outs that the Dodgers recorded Friday against the Cincinnati Reds were made:
First inning: Strikeout; flyout to center; fielder's choice (grounder to short, flip to second to get the runner).
Second inning: Strikeout; flyout to center; strikeout.
Third inning: Strikeout; flyout to right; flyout to left.
Fourth inning: 3 strikeouts
Fifth inning: 2 strikeouts, lineout to left.
Sixth inning: Strikeout; two popouts to second.
Seventh inning: Flyout to left, strikeout; popout to short.
Eighth inning (Broxton pitching): Popout to second; strikeout; fielder's choice (grounder to third, flip to second to get the force)
Ninth inning (Saito pitching): Bunt popped out to the catcher (after first two runners got aboard); fielder's choice (grounder to third, throw to second for the force); strikeout.

Posted by Tom at 12:41 PM |