Christian Hanson says he wasn't a big fan of the movie "Slap Shot." Even though his dad, Dave, was on of the famed Hanson Brothers.
"I probably didn't see it until I was about 13 years old, and I'm just sitting there watching and I'm actually befuddled," Christian, above, says in an ESPN "SportsCenter" piece that'll air throughout the day Sunday. "My dad is up there hackin' and whackin' and beatin' guys up, and swearing. I never saw any of this at home."
Probably a good thing.
Christian Hanson is a junior center on Notre Dame's hockey team, perhaps with a future in the league -- but not so much as one of them goons his dad helped create on the movie screen in 1977.
Dave Hanson played in 33 NHL games in the late '70s, and actually played for the Johnstown Jets ('74 to '77), registering 66 points in 144 games -- with 587 penalty minutes.
In the "SportsCenter" piece, Chris Connelly tracks down Dave, now a manager of the Robert Morris University Island Sports Complex in Pittsburgh, at the Cambria County War Memorial Auditorium in Johnstown, Pa., where "Slap Shot" was filmed.
"We weren't acting," Dave says. "I think it was more difficult for the actors to play hockey players than it was on us trying to play hockey players ‘cause we weren't acting. We more or less improvised almost everything and kinda did what we wanted to do ourselves.
"I left nothing in the locker room. I left everything on the ice, and that often meant dropping the gloves and knocking the snot out of the other guy."
Not to get everything confusing, but Dave played Jack Hanson (No. 16) in the movie. Steve Carlson, who also played in Johnstown ('74 to '76) and had an NHL career that included a stop with the Kings ('79-'80, 52 games, 9 goals, 12 assists, 23 penalty minutes), played Steve Hanson (No. 17). Steve's brother, Jeff, another Johnstown player ('74 to '76), played Jeff Hanson (No. 18). Jack Carlson, a third Carlson brother, was supposed to play Jack Hanson, but he was called up by the WHA's Edmonton Oilers and missed out.
Christian Hanson, a 6-foot-4, 225-pound center, says about his on-screen and real-life dad: "You ask any of my friends, anybody I'm around, and they say, 'It's amazing with Mr. Hanson, he's just so laid back and so quiet and such a nice person,' and then you see the movie, and you watch footage of what he did, and he was a warrior."
ESPN "SportsCenter" is scheduled to air at 7:30 a.m., 3 p.m. 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. Sunday.
The end is here. The final chapter of the Best and Worst of the L.A. Sports Media comes to its annual climatic end in Feburary -- thank goodness there was an extra day this year to accomodate all the nonsense -- with the stunning announcement that Vin Scully continues to be the cream of the play-by-play men.
With Bob Miller about as close a second as we could do in our own poll, which came with the added bonus feature on Rory Markas in today's Daily News.
For those who don't care to look any farther than this page for the winners, whiners and losers (and yes, here, Scully can win every year without some aribrary rule about not repeating after X number of years):
THE TOP 10:
1a: Vin Scully, Dodgers TV (FSN, Channel 9) and radio (790-AM)
1a-b: Bob Miller, Kings TV (FSN)
3. Rory Markas, Angels radio (710-AM) and TV (FSN; Channel 13) and USC basketball radio (710-AM)
4: Spero Dedes, Lakers radio (570-AM)
5. Jim Watson, USC and Galaxy TV (FSN)
6. Nick Nickson, Kings radio (1150-AM)
7. Bill Macdonald, college basketball and football TV (FSN)
8. Brian Siemen, Clippers radio (710-AM)
9. Paul Sunderland, college basketball (FSN)
10. (tie) Tom Kelly, David Caldwell, Randy Rosenbloom and Chris McGee: High school football and basketball
Honorable mention: Charley Steiner, Dodgers radio and TV; Isaac Lowenkron and Andrew Siciliano, Avengers radio; Chris Roberts, UCLA football and basketball radio; John Ahlers, Ducks TV.
THE BOTTOM FIVE:
1. Sir Pete Arbogast, USC football radio (710-AM)
2. Joel Meyers, Lakers TV (FSN, Channel 9)
3. Ralph Lawler, Clippers TV (FSN, Channel 5) and radio (710-AM).
4. Terry Smith, Angels radio (710-AM).
5. Rick Monday, Dodgers radio (790-AM)
==And since there's a demand for it somewhere, we have more media notes:
==The City of Los Angeles Marathon (Channel 4, 7:30 to 11 a.m.) ... we'll get more into that tomorrow once a few logistics are worked out with things they want to cover.
BASEBALL: ==Today's Dodgers-Atlanta exercise (10 a.m.) is the first of nine ESPN spring training games. Gary Thorne, John Kruk and Steve Phillips narrate it, with Peter Gammons included to divert attention from steroid discussion. The Dodgers (against Boston) are also on Thursday (March 6, 10 a.m.) with Sean McDonough and Phillips. ESPN’s "Baseball Tonight" returns March 18 (1:30 p.m., ESPN2) before it falls into the Monday-Saturday slot of 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. (Sundays at 9:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.)
==KABC-AM (790), the new/old home for the Dodgers this season, decided to hire John Suchon, a former Bay Area sports writer and current aspiring baseball broadcaster, as a reporter for pre- and post-game shows. His L.A. ties go deep: He covered the Oakland A's and San Francisco Giants for a combined six years with the Oakland Tribune, and did a book on Barry Bonds called "This Graciouis Season: Barry Bonds & The Greatest Year in Baseball." In 2007, he spent the season doing the Modesto Nuts games, as well as doing play-by-play on high school football and college basketball in Northern California. The station has already sent him to spring training to do reports during regular programming on 790-AM and KLOS-FM (95.5).
We're already yearning for the days of A Martinez reporting on the Dodgers back at KFWB.
Side note: KABC plans to carry every Dodger spring training game live. The Angels' new home, 830-AM (which used to be its Spanish-language flagship station), isn't doing every game live. In fact, many will be pre-empted for either a scheduled infomercial, or a Ducks game. Angels games can be heard on audiostream at the team's website without charge.
==ESPN2 has the first Urban Invitational Baseball Tournament, with Bethune-Cookman playing UCLA (5 p.m.) and Southern University facing USC (8 p.m.) from the Major League Baseball Urban Youth Academy in Compton. Throne will call both games with former Dodgers outfielder Brian Jordan as the analyst, and appearances during the broadcast by Frank Robinson, Bob Watson, MLB Academy director Darrell Miller, and former Dodgers Reggie Smith and Eric Davis -- all to talk about the recent trends involving African American athletes playing baseball.
Down the road (March 29), ESPN will also do the second annual Civil Rights Game from Memphis (at the National Civil Rights Museum).
==TBS, which starts a package of 26 consecutive Sunday day games this season, has penciled in the first two months of its schedule, which includes an appareance by the Dodgers when they visit Atlanta in April 20. The games go national but are blacked out in each team's home TV territory. Boston at Toronto (April 6, 10 a.m.) opens the series. Sorry, but Chip Caray does the play-by-play. Analysts will be named later.
COLLEGE BASKETBALL:
==Jim Nantz and Billy Packer call Sunday's UCLA-Arizona contest (1 p.m.) for CBS and will remain paired together for the next five weeks.
==CBS has added USC's home game on Saturday, March 8 (11 a.m.) against Stanford as its "wild-card" college basketball national broadcast. It has also added Purdue at Michigan for its Big Ten window game on Sunday, March 9 (1 p.m.).
==On ESPN's uninspired hiring Bob Knight as a studio host, two questions come to mind: 1) Shouldn't ESPN make it like a reality show, where Knight has to earn his way into the Bristol, Conn., offices and then maybe ... maybe ... they let him talk for two minutes and then drown him out with Dick Vitale and Digger Phellps, both of whom lobbied management to take him on; 2) Will Brian Dennehy sit in for him when he's not available?
==ESPN says its fortuitious coverage of Tennessee's victory over previous No. 1 Memphis on Saturday set a record as the most-viewed college hoop game in network history -- 3.63 million homes, a 3.8 rating. It's also the most-viewed game on any TV since Duke-North Carolina on CBS in March, 2005 (3.97 million homes).
==Which leads to another Onion Sports headline/story that's good probably through 2059:
NBA:
==Mike Breen, Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy call the Lakers' home game against Dallas for ABC on Sunday (Channel 7, 12:30 p.m.), going head-to-head with UCLA-Arizona, and following Chicago-Cleveland at 10 a.m.... Breen and Jon Barry call the Clippers' game in Denver tonight for ESPN (7:30 p.m.).
GOLF:
==No Tiger Woods for this weekend's PGA Tour event in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., where NBC picks up the coverage Saturday and Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. Dan Hicks and Johnny Miller have the 18th hole tower, plus Gary Koch, Bob Murphy, Roger Maltbie and Dottie Pepper. NBC, remember, has the U.S. Open from Torrey Pines in June. This is the second of seven straight weeks of golf on the network before CBS resumes from the Masters in early April.
Woods' participation in Sunday's WGC Accenture Match Play Championship final against Stuart Cink did a 3.5 overnight rating, up from 2.1 a year ago.
==ESPN has done expanded its digital deal with Augusta National for the Masters that means ESPN.com, ESPN360.com and masters.org will share a bunch of live streaming, especially of "Amen Corner." ESPN.com and Golf Digest will also collaborate on online material. ESPN is coverering the first two rounds of the event, plus the Par 3 Contest.
AUTO RACING:
==It's been pointed out that Fox NASCAR analyst Larry McReynolds wrote on his blog that he'd "heard a lot of rumblings over the weekend that the TV network is what caused" the Auto Club 500 in Fontana to try to squeeze the race in Sunday despite miserable weather and a wet track. "That's one of the most absurd things I've ever heard," McReynolds continued. "What fans and other people in the sport don't realize is that television doesn't drive anything. Because of the rain delay, the network lost many millions of dollars ... you think they wanted that? ... That type of call has never been made by television, and it never will be."
Not that we question his response, but he does have to understand that, really, television drives a lot of things. Maybe not in this case, but it had to come up.
NHL:
==Because of the L.A. Marathon coverage, KNBC Channel 4 joins the NHL's Philadelphia-New York Rangers game in progress for the third period at about 11 a.m., with Doc Emrick, Eddie Olczyk and Pierre McGuire. In flex-schedule mode, NBC will also says it will do the Pittsburgh-Washington game on March 9.
ALSO:
==ESPN Home Entertainment has released a DVD version of the ABC telecast of USC's 49-17 victory over Illinois in the most recent Rose Bowl, with added features such as a piece on Mario Danelo, volunteeer waterboy Ricky Rosas, a regular-season recap and post-game interviews.
It's going for $19.95 suggested retail, much less in the state of Illinois.
==Showtime added a secondary audio program (SAP) with Juan Larena doing the call on Saturday's Israel Vazquez-Rafael Marquez bout from the Home Depot Center (9 p.m., delayed).
==Ashley Hanley, a communications major from USC working as an intern for the Lakers, won the $2,500 Michael Jund Sports Media Scholarship Award, presented by the Kings and Kings Care Foundation. Jund was a 22-year-old media relations assistant who died from a heart condition nine years ago.
==HDNet has live coverage of three International Fight League events tonight at the Orleans Hotel -- site of last Saturday's AVP Hot Summer Nights tour finale -- starting at 8 p.m., carrying six of the eight bouts. A new twist: Something called "Fitestat," a custom-designed IFL statistical program that the league has brainstomed with Stats Inc., will be shown on the telecast.
Perhaps it'll find its way onto CBS' new MMA shows ...
FINALLY:
==The NFL wants you to know that, even when it's not on, it's still smokin' the competition.
With Sunday's Academy Awards show in the books, as well as the recent relaunch of the tired "American Idol" on Fox, the NFL still has seven of the most-watched TV shows of the current writers-strike torn season.
Here's how they go (and will probably remain through September):
1. Super Bowl XLII (Giants-Patriots), 2/3/08, Fox, 97.5 million viewers
2. Super Bowl XLII Pregame (6:00-6:30 PM ET), 2/3/08, Fox, 64.9 million
3. NFC Championship Game (Giants-Packers), 1/20/08, Fox, 53.9 million
4. AFC Championship Game (Chargers-Patriots), 1/20/08, CBS, 44.8 million
5. NFC Divisional Playoff (Giants-Cowboys), 1/13/08, Fox, 40.1 million
6. New England-Giants regular season game, 12/29/07, NFL Network/CBS/NBC, 34.5 million
7. New England-Indianapolis regular season game, 11/4/07, CBS, 33.8 million
8. "American Idol" season premiere, 1/15/08, Fox, 33.5 million
9. Super Bowl XLII Pregame (5:30-6:00 PM ET), 2/3/08, Fox, 32.4 million
10. 2008 Academy Awards, 2/24/08, ABC, 32.0 million
So, they count two portions of the Super Bowl pregame show as legit, stand-alone half-hour programs? That's kinda tacky. The only golden lining is that full hour before the game (5:30 to 6:30 p.m. ET) was without Ryan Seacrest.
Is Ducks TV analyst Brian Hayward disliked more than Kings TV analyst Jim Fox is liked?
That's the skewed results of the latest poll, in coordination with the release of the Top 10/Bottom 5 list of the best and worst game analysts in L.A., which is attached to last Friday's media column on Mychael Thompson. We're gonna assume a Zamboni-load of Kings fans jumped onto the poll, to support Fox (who had 214 of the 420 votes cast for "best" analyst, 51 percent) as much as to bash rival-team analyst Hayward (183 of 323 votes in the worst poll, leading by far with 57 percent). Shame on y'all. Hayward annually makes our Top 10 list, as high as No. 4 in recent years. Fox will tell you as well that the former Cornell netminder knows his stuff.
Multiple voting isn't allowed, so the Kings fans who did flood the ballot box did so on an individual (yet collective) basis. Your vote has been heard.
Lakers colorman Stu Lantz (85 votes, 20 percent) is a distant second to Fox, who won our annual poll for the fifth consecutive year.
On the bad guy list, Pac-10 analyst Petros Papadakis (38 votes, 12 percent) continues to polarize the audience, no matter if its this list, or the sports-talk list, or the TV anchor/reporter/analyst list.
They plan to announce sometime during today's Steve Mason show on KSPN-AM (710) that Fred Roggin will become a co-host three times a week on the 1-to-4 p.m. weekday program, starting Monday.
"It's an opportunity I couldn't pass up," said Roggin, the longtime KNBC-Channel 4 sports anchor who last did regular radio on the "Roggin and Simers Squared" morning show on KLAC-AM (570) and held his own back in the days of KMPC-AM (1540).
"They made it easy for me for make the decision. Working at ESPN Radio is terrific and frankly, Bob Knootz (the station GM) wasn't going to let me say no."
We throw it to Greg "The Grouch" Gumbel in our MMA Studios...
Question: Isn't the average age of a CBS viewer still in the 60-plus range?
Answer: Then let's bring mixed martial arts to the table and let 'em party hearty at the retirement home. Just tell 'em it's John L. Sullivan coming out of retirement.
In a choke-hold kinda move that has us scratching our lower regions, CBS announced today that it has alligned itself with ProElite, Inc., a Wilshire Blvd.-based entertainment and media company that produces world-class mixed martial arts events, on one of them open-ended "multi-year agreements" that will bring the submission by attrition sport to the Tiffany Network for the first time.
In fact, it's the first time a major broadcast TV network will accept this "sport" once considered human cockfighting, but now apparently embraced in most of the 50 United States as a legit (money making) event that threatens to completely snuff out pay-per-view boxing ratings. So why not do what boxing isn't doing -- develop a core audience of young people who get into this, then pay for it later.
CBS is targeting a two-hour live primetime special for Saturday nights -- can you say XFL? -- four times a year. The EliteXC shows are an offshoot of the events that appear these days on Showtime cable network, which CBS owns.
Here's the press-release manditory explanatory quote:
"Mixed martial arts is one of the fastest growing sports in the country and a wildly popular entertainment vehicle for upscale, young adult audiences," said Kelly Kahl, Senior Executive Vice President, CBS Primetime. "It's original programming for Saturday night; it's live, creating an event atmosphere and it's something that hasn't been seen on network television, until now."
With another spin from the co-partner:
"This is a pivotal moment for the sport of mixed martial arts now that a major television network plans to broadcast live MMA events during primetime hours," said Douglas DeLuca, Chief Executive Officer of ProElite. "We are delighted to enhance our partnership with CBS to bring American audiences the very best in MMA competition through our EliteXC brand. The network television agreement with CBS is an important milestone for ProElite as we continue to implement our growth strategy and develop existing relationships with our international partners."
One more glowing recommendation:
"Our world-class fighters and the high production value of our events continue to drive ProElite as a global MMA organization that is fortified by the bedrock foundation of a partnership with CBS," said Gary Shaw, President of EliteXC. "Broadcasting our events on CBS will instantly engage a new fan base, as well as provide an opportunity for EliteXC to further establish itself as the world's premier MMA organization."
Over the last several years, the genre has seen tremendous growth in popularity, especially among the coveted 18-to-34 age demographic, the press release continues. So who's gonna find it on CBS?
The release goes on to explain what mixed martial arts is all about... If you need that information, go somewhere else.
Just more questions:
=Why doesn't CBS try this out first on the so-called CW -- that joint channel between CBS and Warner Brothers that probably airs somewhere on our remote control?
=What happens when someone accidentally kills someone for the first time in the ring? Or is this just creating a storyline that Horatio Caine is going to investigate on the next "CSI: Miami"?
=Will there be cross promotion -- does Jake Harper suddenly start asking his dad and Uncle Charlie to take him to the MMA event down at the Santa Monica Civic, and it becomes a big family day event?
=Who'll do the play-by-play? Certainly, CBS has to give it a stamp of network approval by using, say, Vern Lundquist and Bill Raftery, to appeal to CBS' natural viewing audience. A Dick Enberg essay would be appropriate. David Feherty would probably be the most local ringside reporter. Bonnie Bernstein would seem a natural addition, as a ring card girl, perhaps. And now that Sean Salisbury's looking for work ... the options are endless.
Grapple with those issues and then see how much you like MMA interrupting your reruns of "48 Hours Mystery" on a Saturday night.
We fashioned a media column last November about Curt Smith's newest book project -- the professional life and times of Dodgers' Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully. Smith, a well-known sports broadcasting biographer, told us the target date for the 320-page book, "Pull up a Chair: The Vin Scully Story" was April, '08, to coincide with the Dodgers' 50th anniversary in L.A. celebration.
There was no surprise that Scully wasn't thrilled to hear about it.
"It's a very helpless feeling on my part," Scully said at the time. "Now all my pals I turned down (in previous biography attempts) will think less of me ... It's a terrible feeling when your life doesn't belong to you. Very, very sad."
Latest word is that whatever Smith was trying to pull together won't be coming out anytime soon. After we'd been told that preorders for the book had stopped on Amazon.com, we tracked Smith down for an explanation.
"I wrote Vin in December that I'm delaying publication because of my friendship for him -- and also because I didn't want to distract from the 2008 panoply of Dodgers events scheduled to honor the 50th anniversary trek west -- to this Red Sox fan, the best being next month's exhibition at the Coliseum," wrote Smith in an email.
"There are still a couple parts of the book I'm not 100 percent satistifed with. I just need some time away from radio and GateHouse Media columns on the Presidential campaign to finish them. To me, this is the most electric election since 1960s Nixon-Kennedy classic, when I was a kid."
Smith, whohas a background in politics, having been a speechwriter for the first President Bush, teaches in the English department at the University of Rochester.
In the next few months, Smith said he'll have a better idea of when he'll be able to finish the book.
Scully, meanwhile, finds the decision just a temporary hurdle in his wishes still not to have the book done, even though Smith contends that it will only document his professional life and not get into any personal.
"I feel strongly that any public figure such as Scully deserves a biography, but I don't wish to be presumptive," said Smith last November. "It's something I've had in mind for at least the last 10 years."
As if TNT wasn't going to rehire Charles Barkley. Because ... he was going to run for guvnor of Auburn in 2014?
Good luck, Chuck. You're now stuck.
The cable network announced that Barkley signed one of them "multi-year contract extensions" today to work exclusively for its Thursday night studio, playoffs, All-Star weekend .... even stuff now on NBA TV, since TNT snatched production of it from the league.
Dave Levy, the president of Turner Sports, decided he needed to put his stamp of verification on the announcement: “Charles is one of the most engaging personalities in sports and entertainment today, and we are proud to that he will continue to call TNT his television home for a number of years to come. As we embark on exciting new challenges next season with NBA TV, we look forward to relaunching the network next season featuring numerous appearances by one of our signature announcers.”
This is (only) his eighth season with TNT following an NBA career that finally came to a halt in 2000. So, yeah, do the math.
Usually, when these kind of contract things are announced, there's an added bonus to the person's job description. Like, having him host the "Law & Order" marathons, analyze NASCAR or be the new exec producer for HBO's "Inside the NBA."
Thankfully, there's no mention of that here.
Man, if only he'd let us ride in the limo with him the next time he's in town to do the "Tonight Show" with Jay Leno... Or even with Frank Caliendo dressed up as Barkley.
A dirty dozen years at ESPN for Sean Salisbury -- gone
Without a real press-release kinda statement from ESPN, an email sent out by the WWLeader today indicates that former NFL and USC quarterback Sean Salisbury , a studio analyst on the NFL for the last dozen years, has been sent on his way.
The strangly worded terse statement released by ESPN (without attribution to anyone in particular):
"Sean Salisbury has made many contributions to our efforts for the past 12 years. We thank him and wish him all the best."
And a statement ESPN has released on Salisbury's behalf:
"I want to thank ESPN for 12 great years of talking football on TV and the radio. I have grown as much as I can at ESPN and decided to expand my horizons. I have created a brand and it’s time to expand into other opportunities in TV, radio, Internet, publishing, movies and public speaking, among others. My resume speaks for itself as a football analyst, and I believe I can talk all sports with the best of them.”
We went to the site that seemed to be Salisbury's official Internet home -- SeanBigMouthSalisbury.com -- but the site doesn't seem to be working.... Gone, too?
From the way ESPN released this information -- about 3 hours after it also announced that former NFL receiver and HBO "Inside the NFL" analyst Cris Carter was joining the network -- it leads us to believe that a reporter following up on the later discovered the former, and asked an ESPN official about it. That led to a scramble of sorts to explain why Salisbury was a) fired, b) not rehired or c) mutually agreed to split.
Still, if you're looking for a deeper understanding of this, perhaps a recent exchange between Salisbury and fellow NFL reporter/sparring partner John Clayton was a contributing factor? AOL Fan House can document that one for you.
There's also the wildy reported suspension Salisbury reportedly received from ESPN for ... well, Deadspin.com can fill you in. Salisbury told us after that report that, without denying it, he didn't read Internet stuff and don't believe everything you read.
Carter will be used, meanwhile, as another time filler on "NFL Live," as well as other proported news shows.
“Cris is a Hall of Fame caliber player and a tremendous analyst, and we are thrilled to welcome him to ESPN where he will give fans a true insider’s perspective on the NFL year-round across our various platforms,” said Norby Williamson, ESPN executive vice president of production.
Attempts to reach Salisbury so far have not been successful.
When ESPN announced Carter's hiring today, it concluded the press release with this paragraph:
"Carter is the latest addition to ESPN’s impressive roster of NFL studio analysts, which includes Mike Ditka, Merril Hoge, Tom Jackson, Keyshawn Johnson, Mark Schlereth, Emmitt Smith, Steve Young and others."
Others, apparently not including Salisbury, who, according to one ESPN radio website, is the love child of Gary Busey and pro golfer Scott Hoch. We don't make this stuff up, we just report it.
Today's the day to harken back to a date far, far back in baseball history -- 1988, and the Dodgers' last World Series victory.
Break out those "Sgt. Pepper" lyrics again.
Today's the day, because Major League Baseball says so. Because today's the date you can pre-order the first-of-its kind Dodgers' 1988 World Series Collectors Edition seven DVD boxed set.
It will be shipped starting March 25 for $79.95 (suggested retail price).
If you've seen these with other World Series boxed sets, it's pretty darn cool. There's al five complete, uncut games from the NBC telecast, plus the NLCS Games 4 and 7 against the Mets.
In all, 1,070 minutes, plus bonus footage.
The highlights:
==There's three calls of Kirk Gibson's Game 1 home run -- from Vin Scully's network TV description, Jack Buck's call on the national radio, and Don Drysdale's version on the Dodger radio network.
==And a look back at Orel Hershiser's 59 consecutive scoreless innings streak.
==The 1988 World Series Trophy and MVP Award presentation, and '88 ring ceremony.
==Interviews with Tommy Lasorda, Kirk Gibson, Dennis Eckersley, Tony LaRussa and Sparky Anderson
Oscar predition: Ferrell prostitutes himself ... again ... and again
It's bound to happen sometime during tonight's Academy Awards ceremony: Will Ferrell bounding on stage in his Flint Tropics ABA uniform, spinning a red, white and blue ball on his finger, in some self-promoting skit that leads to a laugh or two but, more importantly, reminds everyone that his movie "Semi-Pro" hits theatres on Friday.
As if we didn't already know.
From the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover promo to a spread of him in Jackie Moon character with Heidi Klum, to the ads he's been doing for Old Spice and Budweiser, to the signage at Lakers and Clippers games at Staples Center ... to the banner adds on ESPN.com ... the cover of Entertainment Weekly ...
Someone suggested there should be a way to put out a restraining order to keep Ferrell away from the 1970s....
We cringe and laugh at the same time to see this story pop up on The Onion Sports:
Why not? Look at what he's done for figure skating ("Blades of Glory") and NASCAR ("Tallageda Nights").
"Blades" did make our annual list of the best/worst sports movies. For 2007, let's review what came out and what isn't Oscar worthy. Again:
BEST SPORTS FLICKS OF '07:
1. “Resurrecting The Champ”
Maybe it was the fact Josh Hartnett played a bumbling sports writer at the Denver Times, and Samuel L. Jackson was a heck of a great homeless guy/liar that drew us to a movie based on a true story. Or a true lie.
We want to believe Battlin' Bob Satterfield existed. Did he?
Wrote Maxim's Pete Hammond about the movie: "An engrossing, surprising and moving drama that will restore your faith in the power of movies to tell great human stories. ... Josh Hartnett does some of his best screen work and Samuel L. Jackson has never been better. His brilliant portrait of a forgotten boxer well past his glory days should be remembered at Oscar time."
Too bad it wasn't.
Best line (for us) from the movie: “Your copy is a lot of typing but not much writing. I forgot your piece when I’m reading them" -- Alan Alda, Hartnett's newspaper boss.
2.“The Final Season” Sean Astin as Kent Stock, the coach in 1990 at Norway High in Iowa. Again, based on a true story. Jim Van Scoyoc (Powers Booth) built the program that won 19 in a row as 1A champions from a school population of 101 and a city population of 586. Rachel Leigh Cook, we liked. Tom Arnold, we could have done without.
Best line (for us) from the movie: “We grow ballplayers here like corn.” -- Booth.
Best was also to see actual documentary footage from KCRG-TV Channel 9 about the real story.
3.“Pride”
Again, it's tough to get into a flick with Tom Arnold in the cast, but Terrence Howard keeps us focused as he starts a black swim team in Philadelphia. Again, we're back to “inspired by a true story” gray area where the real Philadelphia swimming coach, Jim Ellis, says: "At least they got my name right."
A review from The Onion: “(Howard) plays Ellis with a battered dignity fitting for someone who’s channeled his bitterness at the chances he never had tinto making sure the next generation gets its shot. Grade: B minus"
4."Gracie"
"Inspired by one family's real story" says the promo, and we find out it's based on Elisabeth Shue's attempt to play for a boy's soccer team back in her Jersey days. She plays the mom in the flick, while Carly Schroeder is Gracie in a "Bend It Like Beckham" storyline that really isn't like "Bend It Like Beckham."
Elisabeth's brother, Andrew, who at one time played for the Galaxy while he was doing "Melrose Place," plays the team coach. Andrew (producer and co-writer) and Elisabeth's real-life husband, Davis Guggenheim (director and co-producer with Elisabeth) give it a family feel. Dermot Mulroney plays Elisabeth's husband and hard-nosed coach.
Best quote (for us) from the movie: "My mom once said life is like one big shit sandwich and we've all gotta take a bite." -- Elisabeth Shue to Schroeder (Gracie) about what it's like to be a girl in today's world.
Best part of the flick: Based in New Jerseys in the late '70s, Springsteen music thankfully moves the storyline along (think "Growin' Up," which is played twice).
The Rock plays an NFL quarterback living the bachelor lifestyle until he finds out a 7-year-old overly precocious daughter from a "previous relationship" wants to live with him. Hijinx try to ensue. iscovers that he has a 7-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. Best part is the synergy between the Disney producer and ESPN spoof biography of him.
BEST GUILTY PLEASURE SPORTS FLICKS OF '07:
1.“Surf’s Up”
The animated "documentary" style flick about penguins who compete in the Big Z Memorial Surf off, with Shia LaBeouf (Cody Maverick), Jeff Bridges (Big Z), James Woods (promoter Reggie Belafonte) and cameos with Kelly Slater, Rob Machado and Sal Masekela.
Although our favorite character was Jon Heder as Chicken Joe from Sheboygan, Mich.
Think "Riding Giants" plus "The Big Lebowski" plus "March of the Penguins," and you forget it's all animation.
2. “Blades of Glory”
Back to Will Ferrell, as Chazz Michael Michaels, and Jon Heder as Jimmy MacElroy doing men's pair figure skating. Why not?
Associated Press columnist Nancy Armour says: "Whoever came up with the script knew their figure skating. You won't see two men competing together at the 2010 Games in Vancouver, and even the edgiest of skaters knows better than to try to impress the judges with Billy Squier."
3.“Hot Rod”
Andy Samberg as a daredevil named Rod Kimble who plans to jump 15 buses to save his stepfather’s life. Listed as a comedy.
The Onion included it in its summer movie preview/fall DVD preview: “In a post labeled 'the next Freddy Got Fingered,' IMDB.com user “KingHater” calls it a “BOMB” in all caps, which makes it inherently more authoritative than lowercase.”
Will Ferrall was the executive producer in a flick that tries to be quirky like "Napoleon Dynamite" and mix in the Super Dave Osborne element. Maybe.
Worst, every sound on the soundtrack is from the group Europe.
4. “The Comebacks”
Probably looked better on paper for a script that intends to spoof every inspirational sports movie. Coach Lambeau Fields (David Koechner) with cameos by Dennis Rodman, Lawrence Taylor, Eric Dickerson, Michael Irvin and Frank Caliendo. And Andy Dick. All staged at Heartland State College (otherwise known as Pierce Junior College field).
Give Bill Buckner credit for playing himself recreating the missed grounder in the ’86 World Series because Fields is yelling to him from the dugout: “What’s a six-letter word for a tropical fruit? Papaya…"
Best line (for us) from the movie: "Coaching is in your blood, like Hepitatis C or traces of cocaine.”
Heartland State College (at Pierce College field)
A review from an IMBD user: "I lay the blame for The Comebacks on anyone who enjoyed Date Movie and Epic Movie. You people encouraged the Fox studio to keep on churning out desperate parody films, and now we're faced with what just may be the laziest and most desperate one of them all. The Comebacks barely qualifies as a parody. Heck, it barely qualifies as a movie. This is a comedy in theory, but not in execution. No one, not even the people involved with this mess, could have possibly fooled themselves into thinking they were making a funny movie. Director Tom Brady (The Hot Chick) has made something truly wretched here."
5.“Balls of Fury”
An underground Ping-Pong tournament ring is exposed, with Christopher Walken, David Koechner (him again), Patton Oswald and Jim Lampley as himself. And George Lopez.
6."Who’s Your Caddy?”
Has nothing to do with the Rick Reilly book of the same title. Here, a rap mogul from Atlanta tries to join a conservative country club in the Carolinas but runs into fierce opposition from the board president. Then all hell breaks lose. Jesper Parnevik plays himself.
'07 SPORTS MOVIES WE HEARD ABOUT, DIDN'T GET TO SEE (maybe they'll be out in '08; or give us your comments):
== “Believe in Me”:
A macho basketball coach is saddled with a girls team.
==“The Flying Scotsman”
A champion cyclist who built a bike out of washing machine parts.
==“Offside”
Females aren’t allowed to attend soccer matches in Iran, but they sneak in. (April 6)
== "Freedoms Fury"
A documentary on the 1956 Olympic semifinal water polo match between Hungary and Russia.
==“Chasing the Dream”
A surfing documentary that shows eight eight Huntington Beach High School kids trying to obtain the impossible -- a career in professional surfing. Narrated by Gary Busey.
==“Something to Cheer About”
A documentary about the Crispus Attucks Tigers, the first all-black high school basketball team to win a US state championship.
(AP photo/Marco Garcia)
Seattle Seahawk linebacker and former USC standout Lofa Tatupu, left, and American Samoa Federation of American Football President Meki Solomona, share a moment before a news conference at the 2008 Pro Bowl football team practice in Kapolei, Hawaii.
By BARRY WILNER
AP Football Writer
They practice on dirt fields, sharing shoulder pads, helmets — even mouthpieces. There’s no video of their next opponent. Sometimes, the youngsters show up unannounced at a high school tryout, with little or no background in the sport.
Yet American Samoa, the group of five volcanic islands about 2,600 miles south of Hawaii, has developed a highly disproportionate number of college football players, doing so without a grass-roots program. Soon, however, the U.S. territory of 58,000 will have the kind of building block that exists in even the smallest of American mainland communities.
“It’s amazing so many of the boys come through playing American football, and yet when you go back there, there’s no Pop Warner league or any curriculum that exposes them to the game,” says Joe Salave’a, who has played eight NFL seasons as a defensive lineman.
“Because of the kids’ love for the game, that is why you see them try so hard to make it,” Salave’a adds. “For all they know, that’s football, with no proper equipment — they have never been in a program where everything is according to a safety code. You are shocked to see these kids sliding around playing the way they are.”
Yet play they do, at least once they reach one of the six high schools (four public, two private) that have teams. While rugby, soccer and volleyball also are popular, football dominates the sporting landscape, even with only one quality field where the high schools stage their games.
“Over the years, American football has become a landmark sport in American Samoa,” says Meki Solomona, president of the newly established American Samoa Federation of American Football and a former college player at UC Riverside. “I look at the great impact this sport has made in American Samoa.”
So much of an impact that in the last five years, nearly 15 percent of the young Samoans playing at home have earned football scholarships to U.S. colleges. Three of the linemen on Hawaii’s Sugar Bowl team were
from American Samoa.
Just as impressive, four natives of the island were on opening day NFL rosters last season: Domata Peko and Jonathan Fanene of Cincinnati, Paul Soliai of Miami and Isaac Sopoaga of San Francisco, all defensive linemen.
Plus, players of American Samoan descent in the league include such stars as Seattle All-Pro linebacker Lofa Tatupu, Pittsburgh safety Troy Polamalu and New England linebacker Junior Seau -- all whom came out of USC.
The first Samoan in the NFL was Al Lolotai, who played for the Redskins in 1945. In the last five years, 12 Samoans saw action in regular-season games and two more were in training camps. There were at least a dozen more with Samoan ancestry.
Tatupu, whose father Mosi was a standout fullback at USC and then played a decade in the NFL, has not yet been to the land of his heritage. But he marvels at how influential Samoans and other Polynesians have become at major colleges and in the pros.
“Every kid that wants to could probably play in the NFL if they put their dreams toward it,” Tatupu says. “We love the game and try to respect and honor the game. There’s a few of us in the league, but we’re growing and it’s always great to see a brother make it. I don’t see why there can’t be more; the athletes are starting to get recognition and stuff.”
But they need more than recognition and stuff. They need funding for better equipment, organized leagues to serve as a feeder system, improved fields — and more of them.
That’s where USA Football, the national governing body for youth and amateur levels, comes in. It is providing financial and educational resources and sending new equipment to American Samoa to help local administrators establish the youth league. USA Football has also aided creation of the American football federation there, which will enable the island to compete in international competitions.
By building from the bottom up, Samoans eventually might have an even larger presence in the sport.
“The Samoans are incredibly passionate about football, so much so that they share helmets and other equipment. They share mouthpieces; imagine that?” says Scott Hallenbeck, USA Football’s executive director. “Out of 58,000 people, they have eight players in the NFL, which is incredible.
“This is an amazing group needing only organization and funding, resources and coaching education and actually changing lives.”
The hope is that with a feeder system to the high schools, Samoan football will become a true hotbed for college scouts. Solomona envisions eight fully equipped teams of fourth- through sixth-graders at the outset, perhaps this year. His federation will conduct fundraising and seek sponsorships for the teams, much the way Pop Warner or Little League does in the States.
“Mention Pop Warner and people jump up,” he says. “We’re looking for opportunities for assistance, have equipment, uniforms, resources, weights, etc., to be donated.”
Salave’a got a head start on bringing some organization to football in his homeland after his first season with the Titans, 1998. He established a foundation “to make it a little easier to get the funds to help promote the game back home.”
The foundation invested in soccer and some other sports, but specialized in football.
Salave’a, born and raised in American Samoa, played only rugby and baseball at home. He moved to Oceanside and wound up on the football team, eventually earning a scholarship to Arizona.
“These are the opportunities that right now are limited back home,” he says. “We’ve had them, but they’re very limited. It was not a mainstay growing up on the island, getting to play (college football).”
He believes that will change as American Samoan youngsters receive quality coaching at the grass-roots level. So does Tatupu.
“That’s where they’re eventually going to tap in and get the toughness for their teams,” Tatupu says. “That commitment and the bonds to your teammates are ingrained in me since I was young. Now those kids will have that opportunity, too.
“I’m very proud of my heritage. It provides a sense of self-worth and teamwork. There are a lot of great athletes over there and I can’t wait to see them get going, playing this game we love.”
PLEASANT HILL, Ore. -- Before Ken Kesey wrote “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” or stocked a psychedelic school bus with LSD and the Merry Pranksters to look for America (see photo above), he was a wrestler.
He might never have written “Cuckoo’s Nest,” the 1962 novel that launched him to stardom, if he hadn’t
dislocated his shoulder wrestling for the University of Oregon.
The injury kept him out of the draft, allowing him to go to Wallace Stegner’s writing seminar at Stanford University, where his job at the local veterans hospital gave him the setting for “Cuckoo’s Nest” and the prototype for mean Nurse Ratched.
So when his alma mater decided to eliminate wrestling at the end of this season, it went down hard on the Kesey family farm. That’s where Kesey is buried alongside his son Jed, the victim of a 1984 van crash during a University of Oregon wrestling team road trip. It’s also where Furthur, the bus made famous by Kesey’s 1964 odyssey and Tom Wolfe’s book “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” awaits restoration.
“I know what Dad would do,” said 46-year-old Zane Kesey, who also wrestled for Oregon. “It’s just the kind of thing he would step up and attack when he sees something that’s wrong, when it’s something he’s already shed so much soul for.”
So last weekend, wearing his dad’s American flag shirt, Zane Kesey fired up a newer version of Furthur (named Further), called on Oregon wrestlers and alums to “Get on the bus,” and with original Merry Prankster George Walker at the wheel roared through the Eugene campus.
Loudspeakers blared “Save Oregon wrestling,” drums beat, a brass bell clanged, and wrestlers handed out
fliers as they circled McArthur Court, the aging arena where Ken Kesey wrestled from 1955 to 1957, posting a winning percentage of .806 that stands seventh all-time at Oregon.
The ‘60s-style act of taking it to the streets did not immediately get the university to change its mind about wrestling. But the Kesey family is not giving up.
“One thing about wrestlers is if they get on their back, it’s not over — it just got interesting,” said Zane Kesey, whose father died in 2001. “You get fierce.”
Head wrestling coach Chuck Kearney suggested that if Oregon had not had a wrestling team back in the 1950s, Ken Kesey might not have attended the university. And the course of literary history might have been different.
“Had he gone to Oregon State and wrestled, would he have written ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ and
‘Sometimes a Great Notion’ and all the great things he did?” Kearney asked. “It was a combination of this campus, this university, the education he received here and the sport of wrestling that came together and made him what he was and in my mind made the impact that he made.”
Athletic director Pat Kilkenny made the decision to eliminate wrestling and bring back baseball, which he said could become a moneymaker for the university.
“Is this a final decision?” Kilkenny said. “It’s America, so there are always opportunities to make changes. But our strong belief is our analysis was significant and powerful and conclusive, and we don’t think this has changed since last July to today.”
For wrestling enthusiasts, the solution might be to run out the clock.
Ron Finley, an Olympic wrestler and head wrestling coach at Oregon from 1970 to 1998, has gathered pledges of $2.3 million so far for the team, scholarships and a new practice center.
“Kilkenny says it’s not coming back,” Finley said. “He’ll only be here a couple more years anyway. If it has to go away a few years, we’ll keep fighting, get it back some way.”
One final thing above: From a Seattle Times magazine story, a photo of Kesey's rainbow-marbled casket lies below a boulder tombstone on his farm in Pleasant Hill, Ore. Right next to him lies his son, Jed, a University of Oregon wrestler who died with teammates in a van accident. Wrestler earflaps constantly rest on his stone.
You know the drill by now: Vote for your favorite, and unfavorite, game analyst from the list we've provided of L.A. media dudes.
Either do it here or at the poll that's included in today's Daily News media column feature on the Lakers' Mychal Thompson -- the votes count all the same:
Here's how Week 3 of the 16th annual list of the best and worst of L.A. sportscasters shook out when we put the game analysts under the microscope:
THE TOP 10:
1. Jim Fox, Kings TV (FSN) 2. Mike Montgomery, USC basketball TV (FSN) 3. Don McLean, UCLA basketball TV / radio (FSN, 570-AM) 4. Mychal Thompson, Lakers radio (570-AM) 5. Petros Papadakis, USC and UCLA football TV (FSN) 6. Stu Lantz, Lakers TV (FSN/KCAL) 7. Brian Hayward, Ducks TV (FSN) 8. Rex Hudler, Angels TV (FSN/KCOP) 9. Matt Stevens, UCLA football radio (710-AM) 10. Jerry Reuss, Dodgers radio (790-AM)
Honorable mention: Mark Gubicza, Angels TV; Jim Hefner, USC basketball radio; John Jackson, college football and USC football radio; Rick Monday, Dodgers radio; Tony Moskaw, high school football; Darryl Evans, Kings radio.
THE BOTTOM 5: 1. Steve Lyons, Dodgers TV (FSN) 2. Michael Smith, Clippers TV (FSN/KTLA) 3. Michael Cage, college basketball TV (FSN) 4. Paul McDonald, USC radio (710-AM) 5. Where’d Jack Haley disappear?
There's an online poll for you to register your vote for the best and worst attached to today's Daily News column that features Mychal Thompson.
With that, read on for more bits of colorful media nuggets (or don't and say you did):
==Yup, it's Fox again dragging its big-rigs into Fontana for the first of two NASCAR events. The post-Daytona buzz is supposed to be perfect for the Hollywood-ification of the left-turners. Mike Joy does the call for the AutoClub 500, with analysts Larry McReynolds and Darrell Waltrip on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. at the two-mile California Speedway.
Says McReynolds about the Daytona aftereffect:
“After winning the last two spring races in Fontana, Matt Kenseth obviously, has to be the odds on favorite. Even though Kenseth didn’t have a great finish last weekend in Daytona, he had a great race car and unfortunately got caught up in a wreck with teammate Dave Ragan. If you go back to the final five races last year, he had five consecutive top five finishes including the win at Homestead and that, coupled with his recent history at this track makes him the favorite to win.”
Then why do we bother watching?
Fox reported that Sunday's Daytona 500 had a 10.2 rating/20 share and averaged 17.8 million viewers, up slightly from a year ago (10.1/20).
Meanwhile, ESPN2 has the Nationwide Series 300-mile race on Saturday (4 p.m.) with Dr. Jerry Punch, Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree. Allen Bestwick does "NASCAR Countdown" with Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty.
==In addition to all that -- and don't you think it's enough -- DirecTV gives a fan a chance to show his NASCAR chops (and promote its HotPass subscription service) by allowing someone to do the race call. Today and Saturday, fans can register at the DirecTV Fan Zone kiosk around the Fontana track. The winner will be interviewed by the HotPass production execs and the winner will provide the live audio description on one of the four channels of coverage on the Sunday HotPass service. DirecTV is doing the promotion at every track where NASCAR stages an event this season. Last week, Daytona 500 winner Kevin Harvick was one of the four pre-determined drivers who got the HotPass exclusive treatment of continuous in-car camera and audio coverage.
If you're not familiar with the HotPass deal, which is like NFL Sunday Ticket, bad boy Tony Stewart does the promos for it and explains: "The best part: You don't have to hold it in for all 400 laps."
That's his temper, or his bladder?
==HBO's Jim Lampley, Max Kellerman and Lennox Lewis do the call from Madison Square Garden on Saturday for the Wladimir Klitschko-Sultan Ibragimov bout (6:30 p.m., after the replay of the Kelly Pavlik-Jermain Taylor bout).
Afterward, HBO's documentary "Joe Louis: America's Hero ... Betrayed" makes its debut (9 p.m.) It's a must-see during Black History Month, focusing more on how after Louis became a national boxing icon, he served in the U.S. Army in World War II but was hounded by the government to pay back taxes -- from money he donated.
==For the record, the NBA All-Star Game on TNT did a 4.5 coverage rating, down 11.8 percent from 5.1 last year. It's been pointed out that the game has drawn fewer and fewer viewers every year since TNT has done the game since 2003.
So what, says TNT.
This is the statement issued by David Levy, president of Turner Broadcasting Sales and Turner Sports: "TNT’s 17 hours of NBA All-Star 2008 programming, more than 100 hours of broadband coverage on TNT NBA Overtime, and the inaugural use of text messaging to help determine the NBA All-Star Game MVP and Slam Dunk champion clearly resonated with fans on a multitude of platforms. Turner Sports and the NBA have always prided themselves on cutting edge innovation and this weekend’s successful event showcased our partnership’s ability to aggregate and produce sporting events on a variety of mediums.”
TNT says more than one million text messages were received to help determine Saturday's Slam Dunk contest winner, Dwight Howard. And more than 500,000 voted online to determine Sunday's game MVP (LeBron James).
==Steve Lavin pays a return trip to Pauley Pavilion with Brent Musburger to cover the UCLA-Oregon game, Saturday at 12:30 p.m. as an ABC regional contest (Channel 7) ... Steve Physioc is paired with Krista Blunk and Melissa Knowles on ESPNU's coverage of this BracketBuster contest between Rider and Cal State Northridge (Saturday, 6 p.m.). It goes head-to-head with the ESPN coverage of No. 1 Memphis against No.2 Tennessee (Dan Shulman, Dick Vitale and Erin Andrews). ... CBS gets into March mode with Tim Brando and Mike Gminski on the Arkansas-Kentucky regional game (Saturday, 11 a.m.), followed by Gus Johnson and Clark Kellogg on the Kansas-Oklahoma State regional game (1 p.m.; instead of St. John's-Duke with Dick Enberg and Bill Raftery). Sunday, Craig Bolerjack and Bob Wenzel do the Syracuse-Notre Dame regional (11 a.m.) with Verne Lundquist (no Jim Nantz?) and Billy Packer doing Wisconsin-Ohio State (1 p.m.) All that includes Greg Gumbel and Seth Davis with the "At The Half" studio show each day.
== ABC has Mike Breen, Jeff Van Gundy, Mark Jackson and Michele Tafoya at the Detroit-Phoenix NBA game (Sunday, 11:30 a.m.)
==Starting with its coverage Wednesday of the Lakers' game in Phoenix, ESPN360.com has become the first in the U.S. to deliver HD video streaming on a live event. It's available in the 16:9 aspect ratio, at a high bit rate (more than 2 Mbps) and doesn't need additional download or software. ESPN360.com’s initial HD streaming programming lineup will include the weekly NBA game and add college games in the future.
==CBS reports that its CSTV network, soon to be called CBS College Sports Network, has been added to the Charter cable lineup in Southern California as a digital sports view on Channel 399 or 411 to customers in Glendale/Burbank, Long Beach, Malibu, the San Gabriel Valley, Whitter, Riverside, San Bernardino and Victorville.
==Save the date: The Tennis Channel plans to televise the upcoming exhibition between Pete Sampras and Roger Federer on Monday, March 10 at Madison Square Garden in New York. They've called it the "Netjets Showdown," and not only will Tennis Channel do it live (4:30 p.m.) that day, but with John McEnroe as the analyst and Justin Gimelstob the reporter for play-by-play man Ted Robinson. Tennis Channel will also stream the match online at www.tennischannel.com.
==Guess that Mike Greenberg-Mike Golic team as Arena Football League announcers was a one-shot deal. Bob Wischusen has been named the lead ESPN play-by-play guy on AFL games this season, and former NFL players Shaun King and Marcellus Wiley have been added as analysts. Dave Pasch and Joe Tessitore will also call games, and Ray Bentley returns as an analyst.
Wischusen, King and Wiley do the Dallas-Georgia game on Saturday, March 1 (10 a.m., ABC). The ESPN2 AFL game of the week will be on Mondays starting March 3 (6 p.m.)
==The Golf Channel has a three-part sit-down with Stanford freshman Michelle Wie that airs Saturday (7:30 p.m.), Sunday (6 p.m.) and Monday (5:30 p.m.). She'll take us around the dorm rooms and discuss a "seven-year plan" to graduate. Wie is making her LPGA 2008 debut this weekend at the Field Open in Hawaii, aired on the Golf Channel today and Saturday at 3:30 p.m.
By the way, did Tiger Woods ever get his Stanford diploma?
==NBC, with Dan Hicks, Johnny Miller, Roger Maltbie, Mark Rolfing and Gary Koch, picks up the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship from Tuscon on Saturday (11 a.m. to 3 p.m.), followed by the Sunday 36-hole final (11 a.m. to 3 p.m.). The Golf Channel coverage, with Kelly Tilghman and Nick Faldo, continues today as well as Saturday and Sunday morning, meaning between the two networks, 27 hours will be televised.
NBC producer Tommy Roy says it about the coverage: "We view matchplay as one of our specialties and cover matchplay differently than stroke play. For example, when we go to a match, we stay with it. You can't jump around from player-to-player and hole-to-hole as you would in a stroke play event. It's a daunting task, but one that we love."
==In other golf TV notes, DirecTV plans to do up a Masters Mix Channel for all four rounds of The Masters tournament from April 10-13, writes Michael Hiestand in USA Today this week. One channel will be devoted to Augusta’s “Amen Corner'' (holes 11, 12 and 13), another to holes 15 and 16. Each channel has its own set of announcers. The other channel will have ESPN and CBS live overall coverage. The channels will also be available on Masters.org.
==The NFL Network will lose about 4 million subscribers when EchoStar goes through with plans this week to move the channel on its "America's Top 200" tier (instead of "America's Top 100" package), according to the Sports Business Daily. One of the reasons EchoStar is making the move is "because it was disappointed in the league's decision to give the season-ending Patriots-Giants game to national over-the-air broadcasters," said SPD.
==Roger Clemens isn't going to Disney World after his Congressional testimony.
The New York Times reports that Clemens withdrew from a scheduled appearance at the fabricated "ESPN the Weekend" at Disney World next weekend. In a statement, Clemens said: "I believe my current participation could be a distraction. The event should be an occasion for fun by all, and I want that to be the case for everyone involved."
ESPN said it had a confirmation from Clemens earlier this month, but his testimony to the U.S. House Committee on Overight & Government Reform may have changed his mind.
Of course, Clemens' lawyer Rusty Hardin said the decision to withdrawl "had nothing to do with his legal situation. I haven't even talked to him about it."
Stay in that denial mode. You wear it well.
And as for ESPN: You're off the hook.
==And finally:
A judge in Houghton, Mich., involved in a lawsuit stemming from the exhumation of the body of former Notre Dame legendary halfback George Gipp ruled Thursday that ESPN must provide the Gipp relatives with any materials it has related to the fact it had a camera crew record the digging up of the remains on Oct. 4.
Gipp, who died in 1920 of pneumonia, was exhumed for DNA testing to determine whether he had fathered his girlfriend’s child. The results were negative. Karl Gipp, who says he and George Gipp are first cousins once removed, and another cousin, Ron Gipp, filed the suit in November in Houghton County Circuit Court. In seeking damages of more than $25,000, they accuse the defendants of negligence, contending that the remains of the player’s sister, Bertha Isabelle Gipp Martin, were disturbed because workers initially dug in the wrong spot. She was buried next to her brother.
The defendants include ESPN; Mike Bynum, a sports writer from Birmingham, Ala., who helped arrange the exhumation and notified ESPN; Rick Frueh, of Chicago, who requested the exhumation and says he’s Gipp’s great-nephew; and Dr. Dawn Nulf, the county medical examiner who authorized the removal of George Gipp’s remains from a grave near his Upper Peninsula hometown of Houghton. Torger Omdahl, an Iron Mountain attorney representing the Gipp cousins, said it was too early to say how much benefit the materials will provide.
“After I see what’s there, I’ll know,” he told The Daily Mining Gazette.
Frueh and Bynum, among others, have asked the case to be dismissed, saying that the Gipps are not close enough relatives to be able to have filed the suit. The court will decide whether to move forward
with the case on March 24.
Meanwhile, it might behoove the Reagan Library to put a few extra security guards near Dutch's gravesite in Simi Valley. Just in case another ESPN camera crew gets a little anxious.
Whatever happened to ... Lisa Guerrero? Here's what
Thanks to AwfulAnnouncing.com, via a bored reporter at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, we've stumbled upon the latest project in the life of one-time "Monday Night Football" and Playboy poser Lisa Guerrero and her husband, retired softball pitcher and former Dodger hanger-on Scott Erickson.
They're movie folk. At least Scottie's bankrolling Lisa's flick Jones. And movie posterization.
"Now that he’s retired and she’s no longer providing unintentional hilarity on Monday Night Football, Scott and Lisa have found time to co-produce 'A Plumm Summer,' a film about a kidnapped puppet named Froggy Doo. Process that for awhile, then note that the film also stars Jeff Daniels, William Baldwin, the Fonz, the dead lady from Desperate Housewives, and … Lisa Guerrero. Process that for awhile, then note that it’s also based on a true story."
The blurb fails to mention that Clint Howard appears in the role of "Blinky the Clown." Seriously.
Guerrero (or Coles or Guerrero-Coles or Guerrero-Coles-Erickson) plays the role of Roxie Plumm, and is listed as exec producer with Erickson. According to her IMDB.com resume, this is her first role since playing "Reporter" in "Today You Die." Or maybe that's a reference to her playing an actual reporter on a "MNF" game before she was canned. IMBD also notes that a movie called "Fire Down Below," where she played the role of "Blonde Beauty," airs this weekend on TNT.
If it's raining, and you're bored, play a drinking game -- take a swill everytime you see her deliver a line without cracking up.
"A Plumm Summer" has not been rated and it's scheduled for release in March. Check back on RottenTomatoes.com in the coming weeks.
OK, one last cheeze shot before we go (the "before" in the before-after juxtoposition of where she was way back when, and where she is now in the photo above from the flick, with one of the Baldwins and some soon-to-be messed up kid):
Based on the 254 of you out there who felt compelled to vote in our Daily News online poll of the best and worst TV sports anchors/reporters/personalities/talkers, a spin-off of Friday's column, FSN's Patrick O'Neal garnered the most attention -- 92 votes, 36 percent -- to win the "best" category by a landslide over FSN's Petros Papadakis (41 votes, 16 percent) and our favorite, FSN's Bill Macdonald (30 votes, 12 percent).
In the least-favorite polling, Papadakis surprisingly gathered 24 percent of the 168 votes to lead the way over KCBS' Steve Hartman and Eric Dickerson (both with 21 votes, 13 percent). O'Neal even came in fourth place with 16 votes (10 percent).
The polling will go on. How long? Who knows. We've simply declared a winner based on projections that even Wolf Blitzer could decipher.
Now, what do we infer from the data?
Papadakis, who won the online vote last week for best sports-talk show host, draws attention, positive and negative. Which is about as good as it gets -- he's on the majority of everyone's radar. It's far better than not being mentioned at all. You don't even have to get his name spelled right in print.
O'Neal supporters, and detractors (which doesn't make much sense) also got the vote out. Maybe it's based O'Neal's his sceen-stealing performance in "Wild Hogs" or his book that recently went into paperback, "The Worst Call Ever!" By the way, that's the son of Ryan O'Neal (or "Rye Bread" as Artie used to call him on the "Larry Sanders Show") with his former spouse, Rebecca DeMornay, at a 2001 movie premiere. Not for "Wild Hogs." And definitely not for "Risky Business."
As for Petros, just order a rack of lamb down at his father's Papadakis Taverna in the next few months because, as we read, the place is about to go out of business and be replaced by a Marie Callendars. Pretty random.
The Bass Fishing Hall of Fame -- temporarily housed in Hot Springs, Ark., until they get the new facility up and running -- inducts Mr. Crème into its eternal shrine this afternoon nearly 50 years after he created what could be the most ingenious piece of equipment in angling history.
The rubber worm.
In 1949, Mr. Crème grilled up a rubber worm on his kitchen stove. It revolutionzed bass fishing almost as much as when Bill Bowerman cooked up the first Nike shoe on his wife's waffle iron.
The first marketed worm was the Crème Wiggle Worm. It was sold by mail in 1951 under the name "Whacky Worm" at a cost of $1.00 for a pack of 5.
The rest is rubber worm history. Today, they go in a 12-pack for $3.36 online. You'll probably get charged more for shipping and handling of the worms.
The Crème Scoundrels and Shimmy Gals were in high demand by pro anglers on the BASS circuit. Mr. Crème started his own company, Crème Lures, which is still flourishing, even though Mr. Crème passed into the great reservoir beyond in 1984 and turned the company over to his three kids.
They, in turn, have kept the business going with innovations such as the Crème Scoundrel worm, as well as Lit'l Fishie, Mad Dad, Shrimp Tease and Devil's Tongue.
Kinda makes your longjohns sweaty just thinkin' about 'em.
Along with Crème, the Hall will acknowledge the accomplishments today of Charlie Campbell, who invented spinner bait (that crazy metal blade the spun around to attract the fish); Buck Perry, who pioneered "structure fishing" (doing it where trees fell in the water); and Virgil Ward, who had one of the most popular syndicated TV shows on bass fishing techniques.
All great men. But, truth be told, we're a Crème worm guy. In fact, if people ask me if I take my coffee black, I say, no, sugar and a Crème rubber worm. Along with a Krispy Kreme glazed, please.
The ceremonies will be held tonight in Greenville, N.C., the night before the $1.2 million Bassmaster Classic begins on Lake Hartwell. Wish we could be there. Instead, we'll raise a rubber worm to the heavens in his honor.
Why, oh why, did it take nearly 50 years to finally acknowledge the Crème of the crop?
