It's taken me this long to absorb, as much as possible, the aftermath of Tuesday night's live "Costas Now" show on HBO, particularily the bug-eyed confrontation that took place on a segment about sports and the Internet. Award-winning writer Buzz Bissinger definitely had a bee in his bonnet, and took full advantage of the network's philosophy that swearing is OK to try to rip a new one out of Deadspin.com creator and editor Will Leitch.

Backlash ensued.

As expected, response on Deadspin.com all day today has been in Leitch's defense.
Nonetheless, Bizzinger, when calmed down by Costas, did make some valid points that were buried beneath this creepy sense of snap hormonal outrage that seemed to have been boiling up to where the studio audience didn't know whether to laugh or run for the exits in fear that the gorilla would snap loose from his chains.

A clip of the 18-minute segment in question, from the 90-plus minutes show, was posted this afternoon on Deadspin.com. It had about 15,000 views in just a couple of hours, and more than 200 comments, plus a Bizzinger reference already on his Wikipedia page. As one response said:

"This isn't just "Bissinger vs. Leitch". This is "Bissinger vs. Leitch, Deadspin, blogs, wireless internet, PDAs, synthetic motor oil, the space shuttle program, electric typewriters, the four-slot toaster, automatic transmission, and the rise of pharmaceuticals".

Funny, and maybe playing right into Bissinger's point.

When Costas laid out the facts that hardly anyone reads the newspaper for sports any more these days, and asked why the "established media types" feel threatened by the Internet, he set Bissinger up by allowing him to respond to whether, as a writer, he felt a gathering storm against him and those who've tried to uphold some standard in the sports journalism industry.

"Of course and maybe that's why I'm so heated and so angry," Bissinger said. "This guy (Leitch) whether we like it or not is the future. I'm not the future. I have a son who's 16 who reads much more on the Internet and much more on blogs than he is in a newspaper or what's in a book. And what he's going to read is going to be more glib ... generally profane ... quick ... it's a generalization and there are some good blogs out there. But they're few and far between. I think the quality of writing in blogs is generally despicable. And I say this as a writer who's spent 40 years of my life trying to perfect the craft."

Agreed on this end.

The rest of Bissinger's message, however, will be remembered as some kind of flashback to Howard Beale -- a man who's lost his sense of focus, struggling with jealous outrage, misguided anger and a lack of understanding between reality and Internet fun and frolic, seeing a world so long in black and white that he's missing a lot of points.

Costas, closer in age to Bissinger and trying to act as an interpreter, made the distinction that he too is put off by general Internet scribing that is full of "gratitious pot shots and mean-spirited abuse."

Leitch, reacting to a Bissinger contention that blogs are "the complete dumbing down of our society," said quite clearly: "The nice thing about the Web is Ameritocracy. Sure, anyone can blog, but to get the readership, you have to be serious, consistent ... it's (G.D.) hard work."

If there was anyone who eventually pointed out the ridiculousness of Bissinger's outrage, it was Fox's Joe Buck who came on in the next segment and asked that Costas address him by his blogger ID name (the one Bissinger couldn't believe that someone would even use ... and then kept his nose into his stack of printouts as if he was reading porn the rest of the segment.).

Bissinger's name calling, cursing, etc., diverted attention from what he really was trying to say: Newspaper guys are afraid, even down right depressed, that their years of training and schooling and hard work to bring the medium to a level of credibility, despite what some have done in their own business to water it down, is quickly being taken apart by renegate typists who don't understand all who came before them and why they need to uphold a standard of ethics and responsibility. They will soon figure it out the hard way, but could make it easier on themselves if they didn't treat the Internet so much like Elmer Fudd in a shooting gallery, spraying to all fields, hoping some of it sticks to the walls. Except in this case, Bissinger looked more like Fudd, and Leitch was the bystanding Bugs Bunny, watching him shoot holes in his own argument.

Please, despite all the stupidness that Bissinger brought to the table, realize how some of us newspaper guys feel painted into a corner, even more of them who don't want to embrace the new technology and feel the transparancy of this new medium will undermind how they've done their job for the last few decades. Most don't have to worry. Some do.

And now, we go back to the 33 minute marker in the TiVo segment to hear Costas, reading a respondent on Deadspin.com to Sean Salisbury leaving ESPN, read the F-word aloud.

More takes on the episode:
==The Baltimore Sun's Ray Frager
==On Radar.com on how Bissinger's Wikipedia page was vandalized.
==The SportingNews blog
==New York Magazine's website.
==And this line from Awfulannouncing.com: "Has there been a time in History when people were so confused about a topic at hand and moreso clueless about an emerging medium? Oh that's right.....Copernicus."

UPDATE ON MAY 1:
==Readers' replies from the New York Times coverage of the event:

--"I think this question must be a generational thing. For people my age (having gone through high school with access to the web), it's a ridiculous notion. Of COURSE blogs contribute to sports coverage. Blogs contribute to pretty much anything you're interested in. Are most blogs, on any topic, boring, profane and stupid? Of course. Are the majority of comments left on any particular web site the same? Absolutely. Nevertheless, there are plenty of brilliant writers and thinkers in the world who use blogs to deliver their ideas to the world. It's a medium and, like any medium, there are good and practitioners.
"The most common objection to blogs (and the internet in general) is that it's unedited. I think that's a fairly narrow understanding of things. Newspapers are, indeed, edited. There's a copy editor, and a section editor, and they each, individually, have thousands of words and ideas to check every day. The chances of something slipping through are enormous. On the other hand, if somebody presents something erroneous on the internet, each of their readers serves as an editor. If there's truly something objectively wrong with their thinking, it will become quite obvious quite quickly. Look at Vietch's blog -- it says at the top "We're especially interested in corrections of our work, and research (usually number-crunching) that we may not be able to do ourselves." When Dan Shaughnessy invites corrections on his sports articles, let me know.
"Finally, I believe that blogs are an absolute positive for sports coverage because of the vast range of options available (the "long tail"). I find it hard to believe that newspapers and television have an absolute monopoly on the great sports thinkers of our time. Especially because, while many people seem to love Tim McCarver, he's not my cup of tea. I don't begrudge people their opinion, but I'm thrilled that I finally get to see sports presented in ways that it hasn't been before.
-- Tim, Berkeley, CA

--"Bissinger decries the pollution of sports journalism by crass, rude, and profane bloggers and their readers who enjoy humiliating people. And yet, it was Bissinger who was exceedingly crass, rude, and profane on Costas's show, and practically burst an artery trying to humiliate Will Leitch. He acted exactly like the bad bloggers he so despises. Will Leitch, in contrast, acted like the mature professional. Go figure.
-- Susan Beck, Cleveland

-"The 'Costas Now' segment was remarkable in that I assumed the public was well past the question of whether blogs are relevant. Yet Bob Costas himself seemed uninformed about what blogs are, how they are written, and how they receive comments. I've concluded that there is a tremendous generational gap, and which side of that gap you are on is likely to affect your view on whether blogs make a significant contribution."
-- Phil, Oakland, CA

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 6:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Joedy McCreary
AP Sports Writer

DURHAM, N.C. -- Ron Shelton says he's just now realizing what a home run he hit with "Bull Durham."

Two decades have passed since the release of the movie Shelton wrote and directed about an aging minor league catcher, a hotshot pitching prospect and the groupie wooed by both that has been praised as one of the top sports movies of all time.

"It's just dawning on me now, really," Shelton said Wednesday. "We realized when we started testing that the audiences responded to it. It never scored through the roof when it scored; it sort of got these OK numbers.

"But when it opened and these reviews came in that my mother couldn't have written. ... In the second week, it stayed and it stayed and it just ran all summer. It was a gradual recognition that maybe we captured lightning in a bottle here, (but) there was no moment of epiphany."

Shelton joined producer and Durham native Thom Mount at a luncheon marking the 20th anniversary of the film that captures a season with a fictitious version of the Durham Bulls, then of the Class A Carolina League.

They've discussed the possibility of a sequel to the 1988 film, in which journeyman catcher Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) and superfan Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) counsel fireballer Nuke LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) on his way to the major leagues.

"It was such a completed fable that it was hard to go back," Shelton said. "I couldn't figure out in the few years right after it came out, what do you do? Nuke's in the big leagues, Crash is managing in Visalia. Is Annie going to go to Visalia? I've been to Visalia. That will test a relationship. ... It was not a simple fable to continue with -- not that we don't talk about continuing it, now that everyone's in their 60s."

The film has held up remarkably well since hitting theaters in June 1988, and so have the Bulls.

Now Tampa Bay's Triple-A affiliate, the Bulls have been one of the most popular teams in the minors, attracting a club-record 520,952 fans last season and annually ranking near the top of minor league baseball in merchandise sales. Mementos from the film are sprinkled throughout the new stadium, with a movie poster greeting visitors entering club offices and an enlarged replica of the "Hit bull, win steak" sign enticing hitters from atop the left-field wall.

Not to be outdone, the Bulls' old ballpark -- where much of the movie was filmed in the fall of 1987 -- is receiving a facelift.

Shelton's appearance coincided with the groundbreaking of a $5 million renovation of Durham Athletic Park, the cozy, 70-year-old field called home by the real-life Bulls until 1994. The park helped convince Shelton, a former minor league second baseman, to set the film here.

"I drove all over minor leagues in the South and kept coming back to Durham," Shelton said. "I loved the old ballpark. I loved that it was located among abandoned tobacco warehouses and on the edge of an abandoned downtown and in the middle of a residential neighborhood where people could walk.

"In the 80s, minor league baseball wasn't happening. Now, of course, it's huge business. I thought that it had a feel of the kind of baseball I loved -- small-town, intimate, the players could talk to fans and back and forth. It kind of visually and aesthetically stood for everything that Major League Baseball was not."

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 6:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In his first mound performance for the St. Paul Saints in nine years, Jon Secrist was dancing.
Tuesday night, in an exhibition game against the Ibaraki Golden Golds, the 53-year-old knuckleball specalist from Westlake Village, trying to reclaim the title as the oldest pro baseball player in the country, gave up one hit, one walk, struck out two and allowed one earned run in two innings in the Saints' 3-2 loss before 1,923 at Midway Stadium.
It wasn't going to be easy for Secrist, given a chance for a do-over by team by co-owner Mike Veeck after a failed attempt in 1999. Coming in relief to start the fourth inning with the Saints trailing 2-1, Secrist had to stare down at the first batter -- a 4-foot-7 female, Ayumi Kataoka. -- who appears to be a legit player.
Apparently, Veeck's motto that "Fun is Good" has been translated worldwide. The Golden Golds are owned by a Japanese comedian who believes in the Veeck philosophy of promotions, gamesmanship (and their version of Eddie Gaedel).
Secrist walked Kataoka, naturally. She eventually stole second and scored on a two-out double by Kenta Sasaki. But Secrist retired the side in the fifth inning and left the game.

The Saints put this story on their Website about the game, picked up by several wire services.

==The story has also got a snip of national attention when the Associated Press sent this out on Monday, picked up on the Boston Globe website.

==Locally, Secrist's story is gaining momentum.
A story on Secrist from Wednesday's St. Paul Pioneer Press, that credits the Daily News in helping Secrist get another tryout with Saints based on Veeck seeing the story we ran last July.
Secrist also says at the end if he's cut, he'd ask to stay on as a pitching coach.

==And here's a link to the piece that KCAL Channel 9 did on him a few weeks ago, before he left for St. Paul.

Here's Jon to explain more about how the day unfolded:

"I didn't sleep one minute the night before, I was so anxious. I just couldn't fall asleep. But boy, last night, I sure slept well.

"Tuesday afternoon, we had an exhibition game, and they let me coach first base. But man, was it cold. About 38 degrees, but with the wind chill, maybe in the 20s. When it came time for the night game against the Japanese team, I stayed in the clubhouse to stay warm, but when I went to pitch and warm up, a couple of kids were watching me and one said, 'Now there's a knucleball.'

"I had watched the Japanese team warm up, and some of them had long hair. The second baseman was one of them. Once the game started, I realized -- that was a girl. And sure enough, she's the first batter I faced. The irony was unbelieveable. It was like Ila Borders against Eddie Gaedel. The strike zone had to be four inches. Talk about a no-win situation. I couldn't dare hit her by accident. I did throw a couple of knuckleballs and it was moving well, even in the cold and still air. It was really dacing. I got her to a 3-2 count before she walked. I was just trying to throw anything down the middle. I realized she could hit because earlier in the game, against a guy throwing in the high 80s, she grounded out to short. She was really impressive.

"So she walks, and I thought to myself, 'There's no way she's going to steal.' And she did! I got the next two batters on called strike three, so I was almost out of the inning. But unfortunately, on one of the best knuckleballs I threw, the guy flung his bat out and got a bloop double down the left-field line (driving in the run). Next inning, three up and three down. I know a couple of the players were impressed with how it was moving.

"The manager (George Tsamis) was quiet again, but he said, 'Good job' when I got back to the dugout. The fans seemed to be into it. It's weird, but when I'm on the mound. I don't hear anything. I'm just focused like in a zone, I can't hear the fans or music or anything. But coming off the mound I got a lot of compliments. I helps to be sandwiched in the middle innings between two guys throwing in the 90s. But I think I show the manager and a couple of guys have come around. I think I could have thrown nine innings last night, I felt so strong and things were working so well.

"As for gatting a roster spot and how many pitchers they're going to carry, I don't know to be honest. I think I'm competing with a couple of guys. It's a very good level of baseball. I'm surprised how good these guys are. The toughest part will be the first week of the season. It starts May 8 and they're allowed to carry 24 players but then have to cut to 22 for the rest of the season. If for some reason I don't make the team, I'd like it if they kept me around as a coach and then I could be on call if a pitcher gets injured or is good enough to get signed by another team. We have one guy we just signed, Craig Molldrem, who throws in the mid 90s and is really good. You'd think someone would pick him up soon. You know how the game goes, anything can happen. I just want to be around the club in some way.

"I'm a little sore today. I dropped a couple of Aleve and that really helps. The arm feels strong. A lot of the aches and pain come from all the fielding practice. Today I think I'll do some light throwing but really take it easy. Hit the jacuzzi. There's a local hangout, Gabe's, where a lot of the players and fans hang out. I don't have my rental car anymore. The friend who drove here with me has gone home, so I really have to walk to get anywhere. They may have me go with the team to an autograph session at the Metrodome on Thursday. But I've been doing a lot of interviews and there's supposed to be a Fox News story on me tomorrow.

"And I finally got to meet Mike Veeck yesterday. I didn't want to take up too much of his time -- a TV crew was interviewing him -- but I got to shake his hand and thank him for the opportunity. Then I had to hustle to get back with the team. I don't want to alienate anyone.

"I'm not slated to pitch again until either Sunday or Monday when we play some exhibition games against Winnipeg here. I'm hoping it's Monday. They have a big promotion where they bring a bunch of school kids out for an 11 a.m. game, and they get autographs and everything. What a great thing. I even signed a few autographs for some kids the other day. A couple of older guys, too.

"I finally got a check for a couple hundred dollars for spring training, but I had to call back home to get someone to fax my birth certificate here so I could cash it.
"Oh, and I got my first nickname. One of the kids who caught me last night, from Puerto Rico, called me 'Papi,' with the accent and everything. There was a couple of references to 'Redford' or 'Sundance Kid.' And one even said, 'Secrist, out.' But I'm still here."

From The Automated ScoreBook play by play sheet:
Ibaraki inning 4: Secrist to p for Shepherd. Kataoka walked. Sato, M. flied out to rf. Kataoka stole second. Ikegami struck out looking. Sasaki doubled to right field, RBI; Kataoka scored. Sakamaki struck out looking. 1 run, 1 hit, 0 errors, 1 LOB.

Ibaraki inning 5: Fukui popped up to 1b. Iwata flied out to cf. Sakai flied out to rf. 0 runs, 0 hits, 0 errors, 0 LOB.

And the box score:
Ibaraki at St. Paul
Apr 29, 2008 at St. Paul, MN (Midway)

Ibaraki 3, St. Paul 2

AB R H RBI AB R H RBI

Sasaki cf 5 0 1 1 Jordan cf 4 0 1 0
Sakamaki c 3 1 0 0 Thames 2b 4 1 1 1
Sanjyo c 2 0 0 0 Krause rf 4 0 1 0
Fukui 3b 3 0 1 0 Brown 1b 3 0 0 1
Iwata rf 4 0 1 0 Colson dh 4 0 0 0
Sakai ss 4 0 1 1 Sprout 3b 3 0 0 0
Ojima 1b 4 0 1 0 Reyes c 4 0 1 0
Kataoka 2b 1 1 0 0 Marshall lf 4 1 1 0
Watanabe 2b 2 0 0 0 Priddy ss 3 0 1 0
Sato, M. dh 4 1 0 0 Shepherd p 0 0 0 0
Ikegami lf 3 0 0 0 Secrist p 0 0 0 0
Suzuki p 0 0 0 0 Whinnery p 0 0 0 0
Kitano p 0 0 0 0 Foster p 0 0 0 0
Yoshida p 0 0 0 0

Totals...... 35 3 5 2 Totals...... 33 2 6 2

Score by innings: R H E
----------------------------------------------
Ibaraki 011 100 000 - 3 5 2
St. Paul 001 000 010 - 2 6 3
----------------------------------------------

E - Sakai(1); Watanabe(1); Sprout(1); Priddy 2(2). DP - Golden Golds 1. LOB
- Golden Golds 8; Saints 6. 2B - Sasaki(1). SB - Kataoka(1); Ikegami(1).

IP H R ER BB SO WP BK HP IBB AB BF Fly Gnd

Suzuki W 1-0 5.0 3 1 1 2 4 0 0 0 0 18 20 8 3
Kitano 2.0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 7 7 1 3
Yoshida S,1 2.0 2 1 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 8 8 1 3

Shepherd L 0-1 3.0 3 2 0 1 2 3 0 0 0 14 15 1 6
Secrist 2.0 1 1 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 7 8 4 0
Whinnery 2.0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 7 8 1 5
Foster 2.0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 7 7 1 1

WP - Shepherd 3 (3).

Strikeouts - Sasaki; Sakamaki; Fukui; Sakai; Ojima; Watanabe; Sato, M.;
Ikegami; Jordan; Krause 2; Brown; Marshall 2; Priddy. Walks - Fukui;
Kataoka; Ikegami; Brown; Sprout.

Umpires - Home: Tony Mueller 1st: John Moynihan 3rd: Lance Schoenwald
Start: 7:05 Time: 2:28 Attendance: 1923

==Previous journal entries:
April 25: "I got by the first hurdle"
April 24: "I'm in a curious spot"
April 17: "It could be five days or five months"

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You think I really read all 30 books in the last 30 days? Enough, I will admit, to get a flavor of some of the books. I couple, I gladly made it all the way through. The first one -- "101 Baseball Places" -- was the first that held my interest from start to finish. The others, not as much, but that's more a function of the clock and this fast-paced review process than the content. They will be read.
The others I'm quite fond of, if you must know, are, in this particular order, the book on Chief Bender, Rob Neyer's latest effort, "Benchclearing," and George Vescey's paperback reissue of "Baseball."
Here's one last link to all 30 if somehow you dozed off during a week or so (and expect an occasional reference to other new baseball books as they drop in during the season, especially later toward World Series time):

April 1: "101 Baseball Places to See Before You Strike Out"

April 2: "Baseball's Greatest Quotations: An Illustrated Treasury of Baseball Quotations and Historical Lore"

April 3: "The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia: Fifth Edition"

April 4: "My Bat Boy Days: Lessons I Learned from the Boys of Summer" by Steve Garvey

April 5: "Change Up: An Oral History of 8 Key Events That Shaped Baseball"

April 6: "Benchclearing: Baseball's Greatest Fights and Riots"

April 7: "The Code: Baseball's Unwritten Rules and Its Ignore-at-Your-Own-Risk Code of Conduct"

April 8: "Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends: The Truth, the Lies and Everything Else"

April 9: "The 33-Year-Old Rookie: Chris Coste"

April 10: "The Rise and Fall of Dodgertown"

April 11: "Far From Home: Latino Baseball Players in America"

April 12: "We Would Have Played For Nothing: Baseball Stars of the 1950s and 1960s Talk About the Game They Love"

April 13: "Asterisk: Home Runs, Steroids, and the Rush to Judgment"

April 14: "Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game"

April 15: "Yankee Stadium: The Official Retrospective"

April 16: "Yogi: The Life and Times of an American Original"

April 17: "The Greatest Game: The Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Playoff of '78"

April 18: "Ed Barrow: The Bulldog Who Built the Yankees' First Dynasty"

April 19: "Ballad of Billy and George: The Tempestuous Baseball Marriage of Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner"

April 20: "The Last Real Season: A Hilarious Look Back at 1975 -- When Major Leaguers Made Peanuts, the Umpires Wore Red, and Billy Martin Terrorized Everyone"

April 21: "An American Journey: My Life on the Field, in the Air, and on the Air" by Jerry Coleman

April 22: "Red Sox Rule: Terry Francona and Boston's Rise to Dominance"

April 23: "Tim McCarver's Diamond Gems"

April 24: "Chief Bender's Burden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star"

April 25: "Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey Kid: The Year The Changed Baseball Forever (1973)"

April 26: "Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember"

April 27: "Going Going Gone: The Art of Trade in Major League Baseball"

April 28: "Anatomy of Baseball"

April 29: "But Didn't We Have Fun?: An Informal History of Baseball's Pioneer Era, 1843-1870"

April 30: "Baseball's Greatest Hit: The Story of 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' "

==Also:
Looking for a good way to keep up on all baseball books, and even more of the others that came out this month, check out Ron Kaplan's blog here, which will also have his own reviews of some of these books listed above (too bad I didn't stumble upon this until recently).
Included on Ron's site today is a reference to a book that appears to have been released today called "Brooklyn Dodgers: The Last Great Pennant Drive, 1957" by John Nordell, Jr., which also has a link to a Brooklyn Dodgers site that has more details.
Thanks for that one.

==This also announced today:
Former baseball slugger Darryl Strawberry, whose achievements on the field often were overshadowed by his struggles with cancer and substance abuse, is writing a memoir, "Straw," that will come out in 2009, publisher Ecco announced Wednesday.
According to Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, Strawberry's book "details his life growing up in Crenshaw High in L.A., his rise to baseball superstardom as a Met, Dodger, and Yankee, the high life and low life, his brushes with the law, his triumphant battle over cancer, his religious awakening, and his marriage to the love of his life."
John Strausbaugh, who helped write a book by John Leguizamo, will collaborate with Strawberry on his memoir.
In March, the Mets announced they had hired Strawberry as a special instructor and a traveling ambassador, visiting minor league teams and community organizations. He recently agreed to pay the Internal Revenue Service more than $430,000 in back taxes, penalties and interest.

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The book: "Baseball's Greatest Hit: The Story of 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' "

The author: Thompson Robert, Tim Wiles and Andy Strasberg

How to find it: Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation, 222 pages, $29.95.

Where we'd go looking for it: We recommend, for this and anything else, Powell's online.

The scoop: Our most favorite version of the song, and one we've saved on TiVo until the machine finally busts, is what Harpo Marx did on his harp during a 1955 episode of "I Love Lucy." Yes, it seems pretty random, but if that could be and played at my funeral, I'd die a happy baseball fan.
The one you and your kids sing at the ballgame has its own charm as well, and there are many other versions to be found. And the authors have done so.

"Take Me Out To the Ballgame", celebrating its 100th anniversary, is more than just the third-most popular song of all time (behind "Happy Birthday" and "The Star Spangeled Banner." It needed a book about its history, and now we've got it. One hundred years later.

Plenty of surprising tidbits are through the book. Such as: It became a hit long before it was sung at baseball games. Composer Albert von Tizler and lyricist Jack Norworth wrote "Take Me Out'' to be sung during reel changes in movie theaters to promote sales of the sheet music.

"Americans were getting together and singing `Take Me Out to the Ball Game' in movie theaters decades before they did it in ballparks,'' Thompson, associate dean of the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College, told the Associated Press in a recent interview.

According to the authors, it has been included in 1,200 moves and TV shows. But it wasn't until Harry Caray started to bellow it out at Comiskey Park in Chicago during White Sox games in the mid-'70s that it became more of a louder tradition. He took it with him to Wrigley Field when he became the Cubs broadcaster in 1981, and when the WGN cameras could focus on him every seventh-inning stretch, the song was rejuvinated. It was Caray, the authors decide, who made it a regular song at that particular time. And it continues to be a Nancy Bea Hefley organ-played tradition at Dodger Stadium.

The book has a list of every recording it could find of the song, including on piano rolls, toy musical chips, vinyl records, laser discs ... even the 1994 Ken Burns "Baseball" documentary, where it was played in many versions (and reportedly sung, in part, by Bob Costas). Some are as short as 20-some seconds, others go past the five-minute mark. More intuitive to the book is a CD that has nine versions of the recording -- with the shortest at 1 minute, 36 seconds.

And a point of local note: Tilzer died in L.A. at age 78 in 1956; Norworth, who was honored on the 50th anniversary of the song before a Dodgers' game at the Coliseum in 1958, died a year later in Laguna Beach at age 79.

How it goes down in the scorebook: Here's to another 100 years, and the version we hope never goes away:

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For those who need to know the results of the 29th Sports Emmy Awards but were afraid to ask if Chris Berman won anything, the answer (as they were handed out last night):

Al Michaels: Best play by play (NBC's Sunday Night Football) -- sixth time he's won it.
John Madden: Best analyst (NBC's Sunday Night Football) -- at least his 15th ... we think they've stopped counting
Cris Colinsworth: Best studio analyst (NBC/HBO NFL)
James Brown: Best studio host (CBS' NFL pregame)
HBO's "Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghosts of Flatbush": Outstanding documentary
HBO's "Real Sports" story on NFL consussions: Outstanding Sports Journalism
Fox's Fiesta Bowl: Outstanding Live Sports Special
Fox's NASCAR: Outstanding Live Sports Series
ESPN's College GameDay: Outstanding Weekly Studio Show
TNT's Inside the NBA: Outstanding Daily Studio Show
Golf Channel's AimPoint: Technical Achievement Award

Going in, ESPN/ABC led the list with 37 combined nominees (27 for ESPN); HBO had the most for one single network (31, 10 of which were from "Real Sports" and "Inside the NFL"), while NBC had 23 nominations, Fox 18 and CBS 17.

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just a reminder about Bob Costas' special tonight on HBO (10 to 11:30 p.m.) on the state of the modern sports media.
Just the fact that I had to leach a clip of it off AOL's Fanhouse blog so I could transcribe a quote from the Washington Post's Mike Wilbon (oh, right, he's also on ESPN) in which he says:
"Our producers, they're 40 years old, incredibly well educated, incredibly informed ... they don't care about newspapers and that depresses the hell out of me."

Does that say enough about where we find our sports media now?

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The book: "But Didn't We Have Fun?: An Informal History of Baseball's Pioneer Era, 1843-1870"

The author: Peter Morris

How to find it: Ivan R. Dee Publishing, 304 pages, $27.50.

Where we'd go looking for it: We stumbled across it first on Amazon, so they get the finder's fee. It's also at Powell's.

The scoop: Morris, who wrote the 2007 book, "Level Playing Fields: How the Groundskeeping Murphy Brothers Shaped Baseball" as well as the 2006 gem, "Game of Inches: The Stories Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball: The Game Behind the Scenes," talks to players and writers about things they know about that period when the pro game really started to take shape after the Knickerbocker Club of New York City published its rulebook in 1845, establishing 20 regulations, such as no more such thing as "soaking" -- the ability to throw the ball at the runner to record an out.
The two factors that Morris believes brought the game from amateur pioneering play are the Civil War and players who were more serious about changing it from just a pasttime. The game needed someone to bring all the versions together and not make it such a thing as backyard croquet. Morris takes it up to and past the 1867 decision by the National Club of Washington to make the first extended road trip, 3,000-miles through Ohio, St. Louis and Chicago. Through that, the Cincinnati Red Legs began, and are still in business today.
Books like these are needed -- even demanded -- as history continues to retell the way things were way back before a lot of this was documented for the modern-day reader.

How it goes down in the scorebook: A wicked bare-handed catch.

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The book: "Anatomy of Baseball"

The author: edited by Lee Gutkind and Andrew Blauner (foreword by Yogi Berra)

How to find it: Southern Methodist University Press, 192 pages, $22.50

Where we'd go looking for it: At the publisher's website, as well as Powells online bookstore and Amazon.

The scoop: One of our favorite baseball books in years gone by was "Nine Innings: The Anatomy of a Baseball Game" by Dan Okrent, which came out in 1985 and has since made its way to paperback. He takes a simple June game in 1982 between the Milwaukee Brewers and Baltimore Orioles and breaks down every element, explaining what went into all kinds of simple-looking decisions.
But the anatomy done here on the game of baseball cuts much deeper.

Or, as Yogi Berra says in his foreward: "Anatomy of Baseball is no medical book -- if it was, I'm certain I wouldn't have read it. It's a baseball book, and a good one. ... A good book makes you think about things you might not already think about. Or enjoy stories from writers you maybe don't know. Of course, I was never good with writer's names."
Some of these writer's names, you probably haven't heard of, so that's a good start. See baseball through some fresh eyes.
There's also the usual familiar scribes among the 20 who contributed essays -- George Plimpton, Frank Deford, John Thorn and Roger Angell. But the beauty is finding a fresh voice amongst the giants.
Like Stefan Fatsis writing about the biography of his leather glove, the Rawlings XPG6 from 1977. It leads into another essay by Christopher Buckley, a creative writing teacher at UC Riverside, and the pursuit of his old glove through an eBay auction. And yet another story about a glove, by Katherine A. Powers, a literary writer for the Boston Globe.
The last essay, by Angell, has the definitive look at a plain, old baseball.
"Any baseball is beautiful. No other small package comes as close to the ideal in design and utility. It is a perfect object for a man's hand."

How it goes down in the scorebook: A great running catch.

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The book: "Going Going Gone: The Art of Trade in Major League Baseball"

The author: Fran Zimniuch

How to find it: Taylor Trade Publishing, 240 pages, $16.95 (paperback)

Where we'd go looking for it: At the publisher's website, as well as Powell's and Amazon.

The scoop: Was just reading a piece by the L.A. Times retired sports writer Ross Newhan about the worst trades in Dodgers' history, and the one where Fred Claire sent future Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez to the Montreal Expos for second baseman Delino DeShields still goes down as the one, in retrospect, that really stunk.
At the time, of course, Martinez was a 21-year-old with a 10-5 record in one full season as a Dodger (1993), having pitched 65 games, striking out 117 in 109 innings. But he was best known as Ramon Martinez's little brother, and thought to be (by Tommy Lasorda) too slight of build to hold up to any kind of endurance test that one must go through as a starting pitcher. DeShields, meanwhile, was a 24-year-old second baseman on the rise, four years of MLB service, 42 or more steals each season.
And in three years with the Dodgers, he did pretty much nothing. Was traded off to St. Louis, then to Baltimore, then the Cubs, then was out of baseball at age 33. Martinez ... you know what happened.
It's most amusing to us that Claire, the Dodgers' GM who pulled the trigger on that one, was given the space to write the forward for Zimniuch's book.

How it goes down in the scorebook: E-GM.

Other books by Zimniuch:
"Shortened Seasons: The Untimely Deaths of Major League Baseball's Stars and Journeymen" in 2007
"Richie Ashburn Remembered" in 1980

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 3:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On the activity sport of kayaking, which he sort of participated in during the 2007 MLB Home Run Derby in McCovey Cove outside of Pac Bell AT&T Cellphone Ripoff Park in San Francisco, waiting for Barry Bonds to hit it to him (but Bonds didn't participate), Kenny Mayne writes in his new book, "An Incomplete and Inaccurate History of Sport" that .... well, nothing.
He has absolutely nothing about kayaking.
The closest he has is a chapter on rowing (page 155), which begins:

"In rowing, a bunch of men or women sit in a boat and row as hard as they can while another person, the coxswain, yells at them to row even harder.
"Wikipedia says that 'coxswain' means 'boat servant.' If it's in Wikipedia it must be true. ...
"I figure the people who grow up to be coxswains are the same ones who sat around cracking up for hours about the fact that in badminton the thing people hti back and forth is called a shuttlecock (see 'Badminton')."

Before we flip back over to page 10 for that badminton stuff, we offer more Q-and-A, spinning off today's Daily News column, from a recent Q-and-A-type interview we had with KMayne poolside at the hotel across the street from the Beverly Center ... the French one ... the name escapes me ...

Q: How many times a year do you get out to L.A. for work?
KM: I seem to get here maybe five times every year. On "Dancing with the Stars," I've been out at least twice a year since getting kicked off. For some reason, we always find a way to do an NFL story (for the ESPN pregame show segment called the "Mayne Event"). Last year we came out and did a piece where we pretended that game-show hosts hate Randy Moss, because he was going to start a show called "Straight Cash Homey." We tried to get Wink Martendale, but he fell through. Alex Trebeck had a heart attack. We got Pat Sajak and Howie Mandel. It was all born of a comment Moss said. Someone asked him "Was that a statement game?" and he said, "I don't pay attention to what those sports shows and game shows say about me."

I'd be here this time with or without the book on this trip. We do a fake "SportsCenter" for "Dancing with the Stars," called "Dance Center," with me, Jerry Rice and Len the judge that critique the remaining contestants (see a YouTube clip of it above).
(The show Mayne taped on Wednesday last week airs this Tuesday), so It can only be good for the book promotion. If 20 million people hear my name, whether there's a book mention or not, that's good. I've had a good relationship with the show, going back a half-dozen times to do some fake stories as well as the "Dance Centers." Any time you can stay in front of the ABC people, that can't hurt you.

Q: You're not busy enough at ESPN that you still have time for other projects such as "Dancing with the Stars"?

KM: I was just offered a tryout for something that I don't think I'll go through because it's just too complicated with the amount of time they'd need and the stuff I have going at ESPN. It is a show called "Wipe Out," which I think (ESPN anchor) John Anderson is now doing.
(He is, and it's a reality show coming out this fall).
"A while back when Lloyd Braun was the head of ABC Entertainment, he saw me do a thing at Disneyworld, an event Michael Eisner had me as the MC, like a retreat for management where they spend money like fools, bringing in Joe Namath and Walt Frazier as guest counselors. I was the fool who kept ht party moving and Braun said that I showed him I could do something beyond 'SportsCenter.' This was 8 to 10 years ago. So they had me work with a bunch of writers, we got some scripts done, it got read, and nothing came of it.

Q: Is that related to the story about how you were in line to host the gameshow "Power of 10," which Drew Carey later did?
KM: I'm not even sure that's a true story. It's something that someone printed, and then someone else printed it and then became fact. I was asked to do a reading for a show -- maybe it was that -- and it didn't work out. There was something that a more sure thing -- a syndicated version of "Deal Or No Deal," but they wanted me to sign a contract before knew I had the job, which would have locked me into a salary. It was way too complicated.
(The show is apparently a go for syndication this fall, but according to the release, no host has been named).
Those things are real attractive but you don't really want to do a game show five days a week. But then you find out what they make, and you might change your mind.

Q: The book title is kinda crazy, but did you really want to borrow the way Jon Stewart wrote "America" and make it completely off the wall?

KM: In the book's forward, even though it was meant to be funny, it was sincere that the model was Jon Stewart and his 'Democracy' book. I was thinking, without trying to rip him off, 'Why can't I do that kind of joke for sports - funny pictures, funny lists, captions.
But as I started writing, it stopped being what his book was and it became a regular book - you turn the pages, there's a new chapter. So it morphed into that. I think one night I just thought of, 'What's the most ridiculous title I can come up with?' That was it, it sorta says to the people who know me what it's about. And honestly you're selling yourself to people who already know you, there's nothing wrong with that, Martha Stewart sells books even though she has a TV show. Someone with a little prominence doesn't hurt to bring the viewers over. I mean, tomorrow I'll sell a waffle iron. I'll keep seling crap until you buy it.

Q: What was the process like writing a book for the first time (as opposed do doing taped pieces with guys like Tom Brady, above, which really wasn't part of this question but seemed to fit into captioning the photo)?
KM: It was real fun, I guess. It's like when I was doing "SportsCenter" -- I love the show when it's on the air, but the eight hours before doing all the rudimentary stuff ...
When I sold the book in February of '07, I asked about the dedalines, and they said they'd try to publish it by Father's Day. So I thought, 'I can get it done in the next two weeks, crank it out, no problem.' No, they meant Father's Day 2008. I was shocked that the process worked so slow. The only books that get rushed some if they're about O.J. Simpson are another story.
I turned it in May '07. They came back three weeks later with just a few fixes. Then I looked at it and hated it. I thought they were too easy on me. I stopped liking it and went page by page and rewrote the entire book in two weeks in the Summer of '07. And after seeing the galleys, there was more stuff I just threw away entirely and put new stuff in.
I'm glad I did it, but it's a weird process. And selling it is even stranger. I'm used to doing TV or 'Dancing with the Stars" where maybe I tell a few friends about an episode that's coming up, but I don't run around town telling people, 'Hey look what I did for 'SportsCenter.'" But with books, if you don't do that, you're kinda screwed.
Back to writing it, there was one plane trip, a five-hour flight (from Connecticut) to L.A. where I didn't stop typing on the laptop. It was like playing music. Whether it's any good is up to people. But a lot of stuff reverted to my childhood experiences. Almost any guy played backyard Wiffleball or football or pickup basketball and they all their versions of my friends. Everyone's Wiffleball field was taylored their own way. We lived on a lake (in Kent, Washington) and we had bizarre ground rules. The right side, and I have no idea why, was an automatic foul ball, but if it bounces into left field, then it was fair. My sister Nancy was a junior in high school and she was our Wiffleball supply shop. We'd have her run is to ValuMart in her car and come flying back with a bunch of new balls. It was the greatest thing to open a box of five new balls.

Q: Do you have people ask you if you still work at ESPN?

KM: I get it from time to time. But then others might say, 'You're always on the air.' People know me for different stuff. I can see how others see me maybe just on a Sunday or Monday for three minutes and that's it. But I'm always planning for the next story after the one I'm doing ends. I'll be at the Kentucky Derby (this week) and still do the "Out Takes" story for the magazine. To me it's a great schedule. I do have a new contract and I'm working on a secret project (which he told us about off the record, and an announcement will come soon ... it has to do more with Internet stuff). No more "SportsCenters" unless this falls apart. To me, "SportsCenter" still is popular, but we get beat to the punch by ourselves. There's still value in "SportsCenter," but it's no longer the only game in down and in many cases, ESPNEWS or ESPN.com beats "SportsCenter" to a story.

Q: One last thing: About your ankle -- you write in the book about how you tore it up playing at UNLV as a junior, then came back to play as a senior. Is it really that messed up?

KM: It kind of looks like there's a baseball inside of it, with the scars on both sides (he pulls up his jeans to show it, which is easy since he's wearing flip-flops, and it looks as if it had been stiched up by the Rawlings factory in Haiti with the seams on both sides). I'm pushing 50, and every year I get older it takes a little longer to get my feet under me. The surgery I got for it in 1980 was probably the best that doctors could do back then, but playing on it the next year probably did a ton more damage. It's just one of those deals. The last time I had surgery on it four years ago, I was on crutches and my daughter was running down the hall saying, 'You can't catch me!' And I said, "You know, you're right." I don't go running or playing basketball, just the stair-step and riding the bike. It's not like I can't play golf or celebrity softball without ruining it. Some nights its worse. If I wear dress shoes all day, I feel it and have to ice it down.

Q: So that's your excuse for losing on "Dancing with the Stars"?
He had no reply.

On the blog set up for Kenny Mayne to write about what it's like to write a book, which is included on his website incredibly called www.kennymaynehaswrittenabook.com, which replaces the website, www.kennymayneiswritingabook.com, there includes this latest YouTube clip of him practicing how he'll do bookstore appearances:

And ...
For those still who simply enjoy looking at car wrecks, here's Kenny's one and only full-on dance appearance on the opening episode of "Dancing with the Stars" in January, 2006:

==Even more Qs, followed by just as many As:
==A Q-and-A with AOL Fanhouse online
==A Q-and-A chat Mayne did this week with the Washington Post.
==An interview posted on Deadspin.com.

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 4:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Daniel Green is the nephew of famed peanut vendor Roger Owens, who we caught up with at the Dodgers' Coliseum exhibition game recently and wrote about in a Sunday column. Green is also the author of Roger's biography, "The Perfect Pitch," which came out in 2004.

After our story came out, many readers asked where they could find copies of the book -- outside the usual spots, such as local bookstores. The Dodger Stadium stores carry it. You can also track it down on amazon.com, at these links on the usual Google search, and Owens' official site, www.rogerowenspeanutman.com.

Here's a new YouTube.com clip that Daniel put up to help promote the book -- pick it up at the stadium and have him autograph it right there on the loge level behind home plate if you track him own:

In Aug. 2005, as part of their 50 days in 50 states, ESPN did a piece on Roger as well, which is available at this link, narrated by John Anderson.

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By RALPH D. RUSSO

Associated Press

NEW YORK -- Big-time college football never has been closer to having a playoff. Don’t get too excited. There are still plenty of obstacles standing in the way, and at best it’s probably seven years away
from becoming a reality — if it ever does.
But, hey, at least the people in charge want to talk about it.
In Bowl Championship Series terms, that’s progress.
“This whole postseason of college football, since going back into the mid- to early ‘90s, has been an evolution. Significant change traditionally has not come speedily,” Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner and current BCS coordinator John Swofford told The Associated Press in a recent telephone interview, chuckling at his obvious understatement. “I’ve often equated it to turning a battle ship.”
The commissioners of the 11 major college football conferences, along with the athletic director of Notre Dame, will dock in south Florida for three days of meetings starting Monday, and talk about steering their ship into previously uncharted waters.
Namely, what would it take to implement the so-called plus-one model into the BCS.

And what role will TV play in it? Read on ..

One version of a plus-one format is essentially a four-team playoff, using the major bowls to host 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3 semifinals. The winners would advance to the BCS championship game to be played about a week later.
Currently, the BCS’s 1 vs. 2 championship game is set after the regular season, which generally leads to much second-guessing.
The plus-one idea has been floating around since ABC proposed it to the BCS in 2004, when the two sides where trying to work out a new television agreement. ABC backed out, keeping the Rose Bowl.
This will be the first time the commissioners themselves have committed to giving it a good long look. Why now?
1) The BCS will begin negotiations on another TV deal with Fox for the rights to the Orange, Fiesta and Sugar Bowls as early as September. The current four-year, $320 million deal runs through the 2010 bowl season. Once another TV contract is set, the format is probably locked in for another four years (at least). So if the BCS wants to make a change that could go into effect for the 2011 bowls, now is the time to do it.
2) Because the working relationship between the conference commissioners is far better than it was back in 2004, when ABC put the plus-one idea on the table and it was soundly rejected.
There’s a reason why a plus-one, or any major format change to the BCS, is unlikely to be hammered out before a new TV deal is inked -- Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany have both made clear that while they’re willing to take part in a discussion about the plus-one, they are not in favor of it — or any changes to the BCS that would interfere with their conference’s long and lucrative relationship with the Rose Bowl.
Also complicating matters is the Rose Bowl’s separate TV deal, an eight-year agreement with ABC that runs through 2014.
The Big Ten and Pac-10 have been portrayed as obstructionists, standing in the way of BCS
progress. While Delany and Hansen have brought much of that criticism on themselves by taking such a firm public stance against the plus-one, it’s not accurate to say the Rose Bowl and its partners are the only thing standing in the way of a plus-one.
No other conference has ever come out in favor of a plus-one.
The commissioners will get no pressure to change from Fox.
“When we signed up three years ago, we were comfortable with the formula they presented to us,” Fox sports president Ed Goren said. “If there is a major goal, a No. 1 goal of Fox Sports, it is to continue this relationship. Whatever they present to us, we’re ready to move forward.”

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The book: "Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember"

The author: John Feinstein

How to find it: Little Brown and Company, 544 pages, $26.99.

Where we'd go looking for it: Powell's has it, as does Amazon.

The scoop: You the benefit of the doubt to Feinstein, author of gobs of these kinds of heavy analysis sports books -- "A Season on the Brink," going back to '87, and up through "The Last Amateurs" to "The Majors" to "Last Dance: Behind the Scenes at the Final Four" to ... you get the picture. Most of those books carry Feinstein's name almost as big, if not bigger, than the title themselves.
Few of them, however, as as thick as this tome, or carry as many pages. You decide if there's a payoff when you finally swim to the deep end and can't go back.

Feinstein says in his introduction that he wanted the book to be an examination of a pitcher's year through the eyes of David Cone in 2000. Instead, Cone allowed famed author Roger Angell to do it -- "A Pitcher's Story: Innings With David Cone" in 2001 -- and it wasn't all that gripping, since Cone was injured for most of it. Feinstein readjusted his gameplan and settled on both Tom Glavine -- a lefty who was no college educated, playing his entire career in the National League -- and Mike Mussina -- a righty who went to Stanford and graduated a half-year early, playing his entire career in the American league -- who both pitched in New York. And both, as the title said, lived on the black edge of the plate to get hitters out.
"They're like scientists out there. They don't beat you with their arm so much as they beat you with their minds," says Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland about the two.
Glavine and Mussina were both in pursuit of the 250th career win in 2007, and both got it, despite some less-than-stellar statistics. Glavine (13-8, 4.45) faltered at the end of the season, as did the Mets; Mussina (11-10, 5.15) came out of the Yankees' rotation at one point.
"What I got to see and hear and learn up close," Feinstein writes, "had little to do with wins and losses ... what I set out to do was give people a sense of what went into those numbers."
Was it a season to remember? Maybe, maybe not. Will the book be? It'll be a vital part of the Feinstein Collection once the publisher gets around to making that package come together down the road.

How it goes down in the scorebook: 1, unassisted.

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lamond Murray had his second double-double in as many games, but the L.A. Lightning dropped to 0-3 on the season after a 109-97 loss to the Gary (Ind.) Steelheads on Friday in the International Basketball League contest on the Cal Luthern campus in Thousand Oaks.
Murray had 18 points and 10 rebounds while Fred Vinson scored a team-best 20, including six 3-pointers.
The Lightning returns to face the Steelheads again tonight at the Gilbert Sports Arena for a 7:30 p.m. contest.

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apparently, 53-year-old Westlake Village pitcher Jon Secrist showed management that he has at least enough to get an invite to the pre-party.

In his journey to rejoin the team that once employed him eight years ago, Secrist didn't throw Friday as the second day of the open tryout for the St. Paul Saints was rained out. But during that indoor session on Thursday, where he showed manager George Tsamis his dancing knuckleball, it convinced everyone that he earned the invitation to stick around for at least another week or so.

Secrist hasn't been offered a contract or a roster spot yet, according to Saints officials. But they made the roster invite official with a news release on their website.

“Jon will come into camp with us and will compete for a spot on our roster,” said Tsamis. “He is excited about the opportunity.”

He is scheduled to make his first appearance Tuesday night in an exhibition game against the Ibaraki Golden Golds from Japan. That is, if it doesn't snow.

Not that Secrist has any guarantees. The team also announced it has invited a right-handed pitcher named Mitch Wylie to camp, and signed former University of Minnesota right-handed pitcher Craig Molldrem to a contract. It appears there's one, maybe two, roster spots open for a pitcher, and Secrist may be battling it out with Wylie. The Saints officially have 26 players coming into camp -- 13 pitchers and 13 position players. During the first week of the season, the Saints can carry 24 players, then must trim it down to the maximum of 22 after that.

In another interesting twist, the Saints announced Friday that former Dodgers Cy Young Award winning relief pitcher Mike Marshall will come to the team's camp Saturday to "explain his methods and ideologies to the pitching staff."

At least Marshall, 65, will make Secrist feel a little younger.

Here's Secrist's take on what transpired Friday:

"Well, I got by the first hurdle, which is good. I have been included with the team to go to spring training. They called me this morning and I talked with the manager. I had a little nicer chat with him this time and he seemed more friendly ... well, at least he thought the knuckleball was good enough. He said I'd be included in the drills, wanted to know if I could cover first base, field my position ...
"That part is good because in the recent winter leagues I was playing in the last few months, I had three bunt plays that I had to field and throw the runner out, and there were a couple of plays where I had to cover first and did it ... I handled those five plays OK. So I think that part looks good.
"I'll start working out Saturday and get ready to pitch in the exhibition game Tuesday against the Japanese club that's coming in. The only concern I have is that it's so cold -- it might be like in the mid 40s that night -- and it's back to raining now, and there may be even snow tonight, or at least get real slushy."

Previous diary entries:
==April 24: Diary 2: "I'm in a curious spot."
==April 17: Diary 1: "It could be five days or five months."

==The Minneapolis Star Tribune also did a piece on Secrist in Thursday's paper. That was picked up by Deadspin.com, who floated the idea: Why couldn't a woman pick up the pitch and become a pro baseball player as well?

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 10:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The book: "Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey Kid"

The author: John Rosengren

How to find it: Sourcebooks, 332 pages, $16.95

Where we'd go looking for it: For excerpts, go to Rosengren's personal website, who has a link to the sale of the book on Amazon.com. You can also find it on Powell's.

The scoop: If Mike Shropshire is banking on the theme that 1975 was the "Last Real Season," then Rosengren will make a case for 1973 (if you had a collection of Topps baseball cards, the three on the cover would tip off the year).
Thirty-five years ago, Hank Aaron, George Steinbrenner and Willie Mays were baseball's headliners -- as was Reggie Jackson and his Swingin' A's, who were in the middle of their three-year run as world champs.
Rosengren says he was 9 years old living in Minneapolis when he experienced this year first hand -- bound to make an impression on any kid.
This was the first year of the designated hitter. It was Steinbrenner's take-over of the Yankees, and his immediate involvement in a scandalous coverup that traces back to the Watergate scandal going on at the time.

Dick Allen, the Chicago White Sox's MVP, just signed a deal for an unheard of $225,000 a season -- more than Aaron, who was closing in on Babe Ruth's all-time home-run record.
Mays was helping the Mets make it to the World Series -- including a National League playoff run highlighted by Bud Harrelson's brawl with Pete Rose -- but was left in that horrible pose, on his knees, pleading with the umpire.
Oh, and in '73, Nolan Ryan threw two no-hitters. And still didn't win the AL Cy Young Award.
Rosengreen makes a decent case for the year to be re-examined as a pivotal one during that 1970s span of change.

How it goes down in the scorebook: HR, Aaron.

###############

If you missed any of the 30 baseball books that came out this spring, here's one last link in a list:
April 1: "101 Baseball Places to See Before You Strike Out"

April 2: "Baseball's Greatest Quotations: An Illustrated Treasury of Baseball Quotations and Historical Lore"

April 3: "The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia: Fifth Edition"

April 4: "My Bat Boy Days: Lessons I Learned from the Boys of Summer" by Steve Garvey

April 5: "Change Up: An Oral History of 8 Key Events That Shaped Baseball"

April 6: "Benchclearing: Baseball's Greatest Fights and Riots"

April 7: "The Code: Baseball's Unwritten Rules and Its Ignore-at-Your-Own-Risk Code of Conduct"

April 8: "Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends: The Truth, the Lies and Everything Else"

April 9: "The 33-Year-Old Rookie: Chris Coste"

April 10: "The Rise and Fall of Dodgertown"

April 11: "Far From Home: Latino Baseball Players in America"

April 12: "We Would Have Played For Nothing: Baseball Stars of the 1950s and 1960s Talk About the Game They Love"

April 13: "Asterisk: Home Runs, Steroids, and the Rush to Judgment"

April 14: "Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game"

April 15: "Yankee Stadium: The Official Retrospective"

April 16: "Yogi: The Life and Times of an American Original"

April 17: "The Greatest Game: The Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Playoff of '78"

April 18: "Ed Barrow: The Bulldog Who Built the Yankees' First Dynasty"

April 19: "Ballad of Billy and George: The Tempestuous Baseball Marriage of Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner"

April 20: "The Last Real Season: A Hilarious Look Back at 1975 -- When Major Leaguers Made Peanuts, the Umpires Wore Red, and Billy Martin Terrorized Everyone"

April 21: "An American Journey: My Life on the Field, in the Air, and on the Air" by Jerry Coleman

April 22: "Red Sox Rule: Terry Francona and Boston's Rise to Dominance"

April 23: "Tim McCarver's Diamond Gems"

April 24: "Chief Bender's Burden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star"

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Iafrate, who we had as the favorite among the previous winners eligible at 4/1 odds, was declared winner of the 14th annual Jim Rome “Smack Off” on today’s show.

Although, if we had a vote – and we in no way deserve one – we were simply crying with laughter at how 45-1 longshot rookie Bode from Pearland, Texas, interrupted his call to put his 5-year-old on the phone to run some of the best kidsmack this side of the Alamo.

Iafrate, the 2004 winner, said this victory does deserve an asterisk since Sean the Cablinasian wasn’t here to defend his last three titles.

For winning, he received a Slingbox and a new computer, plus a mention on “Jim Rome Is Burning” later today on ESPN.

The rest of the top 10:

==2. Doc Mike DiTolla (the ’97 and ’00 winner, who we put at 500/1 odds based on no apparent reason).
==3. Joe in the O.C. (we had a 6/1)
==4. Stevie Carbone (on the 10th anniversary of his only win, we had at 45/1)
==5. Terrence in Sierra Madre (we had as the 3/2 favorite)
==6. Jay Mohr (we had 5/2)
==7. Greg in Vegas (we had 5/1)
==8. Silk (went in 11/1)
==9. Jeff in Richmond (at 12/1 as a defending champ)
==10. Casey in Vegas (at 35/1)

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There was a specific reason why recently retired Brett Favre agreed weeks in advance to hop onto the "Late Night with David Letterman" show and chat it up Thursday night.

He was selling. You are buying.

For the 20th year of the Madden NFL video game, they've decided to use Brett as the cover boy -- why they didn't do it during his playing career is now obvious. John Madden didn't want him to go down with an injury, like what happened with just about any other player who has graced the cover.

"Brett Favre is a perfect fit for the Madden NFL 09 cover, as he epitomizes everything the franchise has stood for the past 20 years - longevity, excellence, and a love of football," said Madden NFL 09's executive producer Dale Jackson.

Please pass the Kleenex.

Now, with Brett savely on the shelf -- allegedly -- Madden 09 can use this as a way to celebrate the love, rather than worry for his safety.

So, has The Curse really ended? We'll know if Brett decides to unretire in a couple of months.

Posted by Tom Hoffarth at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After punting on today's media column, we've got more notes ... AKA, recycle in, recycle out:

==At Wednesday night's Lakers-Nuggets game, fans were accosted upon entry at Staples Center and handed this card:

Alas, it had nothing to do with the usual gentleman's club discount cards you're used to being handed in the Staples Center vicinity before every athletic event and quickly slip into your back pocket, just in case.

Apparently, the 570-AM marketing guys still want the phrase that UCLA's Rick Neuheisel created and Dan Patrick perpetuated to keep on selling.
Passion bucket lives. Maybe.

The deal is, you're supposed to put your warm thumb on that plastic square and hope it goes from black to purple. A mood card, if you will. With no credit given whatsoever to Neuheisel, who came up with the phrase after he was hired in early January to describe how his team must be when it takes on rival USC.

Patrick liked it so much, he got Bob Costas to drop it into an HBO "Inside the NFL" show, and Rick Eisen to get it into an NFL Network spot. Patrick kept asking TNT's Reggie Miller to work it into a broadcast, but he didn't -- instead, Kobe Bryant said it two times to Cheryl Miller in a post-game interview, which led to him getting on Patrick's show and expanding upon it. Patrick considered the phrase dead after Fox's Joe Buck blew him off when asked to sneak it into to the NFC title game coverage.
The bucket phrase refuses to kick the bucket.

"I'm only human; I can't control this craze," Patrick said via email of the KLAC card giveaway. "I just sit back and watch it like a proud father watching his son in Little League."

Long live the passion bucket, which already has a home on the UrbanDictionary.com and a website selling gear started by a UCLA MBA student, mislabeled as a leopard-print hat, yet there are still folks who have no clue what it means.

Read on ...

==TNT's Marv Albert, who'll be on Lakers' games this playoff season through the Western Conference finals, admits that Kobe Bryant did gesture to him and Reggie Miller at one point in the fourth quarter of Wednesday's Game 2 against Denver at Staples Center, shaking his head after hitting a 3-pointer in route to a 49-point effort. Bryant scored 19 points during a 4 1/2-minute period in that quarter.
His reaction was much the same way Michael Jordan shrugged his shoulders at Albert, Magic Johnson and Mike Fratello at the NBC broadcast courtside position when Jordan went 6-for-6 on 3-pointers in the first half of the 1992 Finals Game 1 contest as the Chicago Bulls were whipping the Portland Trailblazers.
Albert says the TNT producers are planning to replay Kobe’s reaction in comparison to Jordan’s and show it as part of the Game 3 telecast.
“The Czar (Fratello) still thinks Jordan was looking at him,” said Albert. “It was Magic.”

**SPECIALS

==After some extensive housecleaning