(Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

==By the way, that was Kelly Tilghman caddying for Arnold Palmer during Wednesday's coverage of the Par 3 Contest, which ESPN covered. Tilghman is the lead broadcaster for the Golf Channel's PGA coverage, and she caddied for Palmer as well during the '07 Par 3 Contest.

==** SPECIAL SERIES:
==A girl once struck out Babe Ruth.

A heavyweight boxer got off his death bed to fight one more time to support his family.

The Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles once merged their football teams – the Steagles, they were called – to help save the NFL during World War II.

Maybe the kind of sports stories that you’d expect to see in the “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” comic strip. But also material still ripe enough for a TV series.
“Amazing Sports Stories,” a 13-episode series that debuts Sunday on Fox Sports Net at 8 p.m., is being billed as part movie, part documentary, using archival footage, interviews and re-enactments to tell the not-so-tall tales of some sports events that a new generation of fans needs to know about.
“The stories are going to surprise even the most diehard sports fans,” said Bruce Nash, the creator and executive producer of the show, and author of more than 40 sports books. “We’ve all heard stories about the greats of the game, but we’re going to introduce viewers to obscure stories and little-known characters they’ve probably never heard of.”
Like Jackie Mitchell. She’s the teenage girl signed by the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts as a left-handed pitcher who once struck out the Bambino, as well as Lou Gehrig, in a 1931 exhibition game against the New York Yankees.

Billy Miske is the heavyweight from Minneapolis who was too sick to train and barely able to walk, but he took on Bill Brennan in 1923 after doctors gave him only months to live. Miske knocked Brennan out in the fourth round and died two months later of kidney failure. Miske’s story is the focus of the April 20 episode.

Sunday, the half-hour episode focuses on Bert Shepard, a big-league pitching prospect from Indiana who enlisted in World War II as a fighter pilot. He was shot down, and lost his right leg below the knee. He was given a tryout with the Washington Senators in 1945 and got into a game – with a prosthetic leg.
“Bruce’s passion for these tales is evident in the quality of the production and the respect given to each of the subjects,” said David Leepson, FSN’s vice president of development.

**BASEBALL:

==Saturday's Yankees-Red Sox game from Fenway Park goes to 95 percent of the Fox viewing audience, with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, at 12:55 p.m. Makes you wonder why they even bother also carrying the Colorado at Arizona game at the same time, with Thom Breneman and Mark Grace, going to the Denver and Phoenix markets. Oh, right, a matchup of last year's NLCS.
Sunday, ESPN has, of course, picked the Yankees-Red Sox (5 p.m.) with Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, plus Peter Gammons. That's going to 100 percent of the ESPN audience, plus the Spanish-language network and its ESPN Radio network. Can you top that?

==On the recommendation of Chris Volk at dodgerfan.net , the Dodgers have invited a group of those who regularily blog about the team for a kind of "blogger conference" in a club suite during tonight's game against San Diego. Josh Rawitch, the team's vice president of public relations and broadcating, sent out the invitation Wednesday, suggesting it was a way for bloggers to not only meet each other but also front-office officials from the team.
Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of knee-jerk blogging?

**NHL:
==From the Onion Sports:

**NBA:
== Mike Breen, Mark Jackson, Jeff Van Gundy and Michele Tafoya do the ABC coverage of the Lakers' game against San Antonio from Staples Center on Sunday (Channel 7, 12:30 p.m.)

==One of the freakest ads you'll ever see -- Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, on a split screen, with one side of Kobe's face on one side and the other side of Shaq's face on the other side, with them reading the same script simultaneously -- started airing on ESPN's NBA telecast Wednesday night, to prepare viewers for the upcoming NBA playoffs.
Is it the first time Kobe and Shaq have ever been on the same page?
Jonathan Dayton and his wife Valerie Faris, who directed “Little Miss Sunshine,” put this and 20 other morphing spots (with 40 total players) together for the league.
With state of the art equipment, Dayton and Faris used "Warp" technology to put the players together by synching their cadence and eye movement so they match one another.
So, no, they didn't really do it the exact same way. What would make you think that could happen?

**COLLEGE BASKETBALL:

==The announcement this week that ESPN's Dick Vitale will be part of the 2008 class at the National Basketball Hall of Fame (to be inducted Sept. 4 in Springfield, Mass.) as well as the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame (to be inducted Nov. 23 in Kansas City, Mo.) can only mean it's just a matter of time before CBS' Billy Packer receives similar recognition for his contributions to the game.
At least, CBS broadcast partner Jim Nantz believes there's a strong enough case.
Two weeks ago, at a media lunch in New York, Nantz exclaimed: "Can you imagine anybody calling 34 consecutive World Series or 34 consecutive Super Bowls? He is the voice of college basketball. He has done more to popularize the sport, promote the game, defend the game, and take care of the game than anyone. It's never about self-promotion, never about any popularity contest. I've sat back every year and I've watched Dick Vitale make the finals of the Hall of Fame voting. I want to say right up front: I love Dick Vitale. I hope he gets in. But I'm curious as to why no one has ever raised a flag and said, Why isn't Billy Packer on the list of finalists? Why isn't he already in the Hall of Fame? Again, this has nothing to do with Dick. He deserves it. But Billy needs to be there, too."
Vitale: Loud, enthusiastic, loved by college students.
Packer: Out of touch, sounds grouchy half the time, loathed by many college students with access to message boards.
You figure it out.
By the way, Nantz, Packer and Vitale have already been given the Curt Gowdy Award in the broadcast wing of the National Basketball Hall of Fame. Isn't that enough?

==Also, more from Onion Sports:

** MISC:

==In addition to alterations in the weekday KSPN-AM (710) lineup because of the departure of Stephen A. Smith's national show (noon to 1 p.m.), the station announced a new Sunday night show called -- go figure -- "Sunday Night Sports Talk," co-hosted by Jerry Ferrara (aka Turtle from HBO's "Entourage") and the E! Network's Ben Lyons, who is a regular on Steve Mason's midday show.
The new show, from 8 to 11 p.m. starting Sunday, is "going to change the face of sports-talk radio," Lyons said in a station press release. "With my job at E! Network as the resident film critic for the network, I get to sit down with the biggest actors and directors in the world, many of whom are passionate sports fans as well. Many of those folks will be coming on the show, as well as the coaches and athletes that watch Jerry on ‘Entourage’ and me on E! Network. This is going to be fun."
The idea for the show came from their appearance on a recent Mason show, and they pitched the idea to program director Larry Gifford.
"Both Ben and Jerry have the making of a great sports-talk team," Gifford said in the release.
Either that, or they can go out for ice cream afterward.

==Gary Thorne, Ray Ferraro and Clay Matvick are on the call for the NCAA hockey title game from Denver, Saturday at 4 p.m. on ESPN2. Today, ESPNU has live coverage of the Hobey Baker Award (4:30 p.m.)

==Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant and Emanuel Steward call the welterweight title bouts between Miguel Cotto-Alfonso Gomez and Kermit Cintron-Antonio Margarito for HBO on Saturday (7 p.m.) from Atlantic City, N.Y.

==The first Moto X World Championships will provide eight hours of live coverage material for ESPN and ESPN2 this weekend at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. Sal Masekela again hosts the totally rad stuff that focuses on bikers Travis Pastrana, Jeremy McGrath and Ricky Carmichael competing in freestyle, SuperMoto, trick riding, Moto X racing and two other things called "Speed & Style" and "Step Up." Coverage starts Saturday at noon and Sunday at 1 p.m., both on ESPN.

==HBO's "Real Sports" returns Tuesday (10 p.m.) -- episode 133 for those counting -- with stories on new Angels outfielder Torii Hunter and his growing up with a crack-addicted father and wondering why more blacks aren't interested as much any more in baseball (story by James Brown); Barack Obama's "Love of the Game," touching on the Democratic presidental candidate's roots in basketball (a story that usually shy host Bryant Gumbel had to do himself, including getting into a pick-up game with him); and a piece on Mike Coolbaugh, the Tulsa Drillers' first-base coach killed by a foul ball two years ago (Frank Deford decided to retell this one).

==ESPN's "E:60" newsmagazine show, on hiatis since last December, returns for five weekly episodes starting Tuedsday (4 p.m.). Pieces include one that Lisa Salters did on Tiger Woods' caddy, Steve Williams, and Jeremy Schaap traveling to South Africa to interview Oscar Pistorius, aka The Blade Runner, who was told by the IOC he couldn't compete in the Beijing Olympics with his prosthetic leg.

==Fox Sports Supports, the on-air charitable initiative devoted to raising awareness, providing financial assistance and spurring volunteerism for select health related charities. Autism Speaks, the official charity of NASCAR on Fox, has seen a 55 percent increase of traffic on its website during the first seven races of the NASCAR season on Fox compared to typical Sundays.

==Eddie Cheever, the 1998 Indianapolis 500 winner and a former Formula One driver, has been added as an analyst for the ABC coverage of the May 25 Indy 500.

==ESPN's College GameDay goes to Gainesville, Fla., to cover the University of Florida spring game. Chris Fowler, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard are on top of it, airing Saturday from 8 to 9 a.m. on ESPN2 and 9 to 10 a.m. on ESPN. Oh, and Erin Andrews will join them, likely dressed inappropriately, to report from the sidelines during the "game." Also, ESPNU will televise Missouri’s spring football game Saturday, April 19, at 1 p.m. and ESPN2 will have two editions of College Football Final – ESPN’s weekly Saturday night studio show wrapping up the day’s action -- Saturday at 7 p.m. and April 19 at 4 p.m.

==NBC and FSN did new time-buy deals with the AVP, whose beach volleyball season starts this weekend in Miami's South Beach. NBC no doubt wants to push the sport as it heads into the Summer Olympics, doing eight Saturday and Sunday telecasts. More than 12 hours of that comes in July (AVP stops in Boulder, Chicago, Brooklyn and Long Beach).

==Further tarnishing the credibility of anything written on the Wikipedia deal for the Internet machine, USC radio football play-by-play nutjob man Pete Arbogast has decided to include me on his long-winded self-written bio. Personally, I'm embarassed more for him. Again. The length of this thing is approaching what Wikipedia dedicates to its O.J. Simpson bio.
I have no time or waste of energy for what he calls a vendetta. But, whatever ...
Great voice. Loyal to a fault. But a fixture on the annual Bottom 5 of L.A. sports play-by-play men -- "a mock poll put forth by same" -- for amateurism, self-importance and an almost Joel Meyers insecurity to angle for jobs he believes he deserves.
You be the judge.

** AND FINALLY:
OK, we go now to ESPN's Shelley Smith, live from the Kansas sideline before Monday's title game against Memphis ... and remember, Big Red, we're LIVE...