September 2008 Archives

By MARTHA IRVINE
AP National Writer

CHICAGO -- Steve Bartman, I have a confession to make. I was one of those fools who dressed as you for Halloween.

It was 2003. You'd just become infamous for deflecting that foul ball outfielder Moises Alou tried to catch in the National League championship series, the one that went so wrong for the Chicago Cubs.

My costume was a cross between you and the infamous Billy goat that supposedly started this whole Cubs curse thing back in 1945. I titled it "The Scapegoat."

Instead, he's hosting it.

The former club boxer who became everyone's favorite housekeeper and Dodger Stadium "Hollywood Stars Night" injury victim has been picked by the Versus network to host its new season of "The Contender," starting in December.

This, again, is the Mark Burnett/Sugar Ray Leonard/Sly Stallone reality show that once upon a time (2005) began on NBC, then fell into ESPN's lap for a couple of years, then almost disappeared, then was taken by Versus.
In addition to the change in network venue, it'll also change in location.

Burnett, working with DreamWorks Television, wants Season Four's 12 episodes to be taped in Singapore, in a deal with that country's board of tourism.

This season will have 16 cruiserweights from around the world, using Tommy Brooks and John Bray serving as trainers.

==More on The Contender:
==From RealityTVWorld.com (linked here)

Maybe it was because the show had a laugh track. (Only for the first season).

Maybe it was the wrong perception that Josh Charles and Peter Krause tried too hard to be like Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann.

And Felicity Huffman just tried too hard.

Maybe I just didn't give it enough of a chance. I was just in a different place then.

"Sports Night," the Aaron Sorkin sorta-sit-com that appeared on ABC on Sept. 22, 1998, lasted for two seasons -- 45 episodes -- before heading into TV oblivion. ESPN "SportsCenter," meanwhile, forged ahead with its target demo.

Sorkin had "The West Wing" up and running by then, so he was probably OK with it. But not really.

A DVD box six-disc set of the show came out in 2002 for those who missed it. But now, for those who still embrace it, the L.A.-based Shout! Factory has a 10th anniversary boxed edition (linked here) -- eight discs and a 32-page book, plus commentary from Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme.. Best is a segment called "Face Off: ESPN's SportsCenter vs. CSC's Sports Night" where current and former "SportsCenter" anchors give their two cents.
It's all for just $69.99.

The set is released today, so we thought we'd do a quick email Q-and-A with Josh Malina (his IMDB home link), who played associate producer Jeremy Goodwin and may have stole the series with his first appearance on the pilot episode here:

Oooooooooooooh, right. It's Ooooooooooooo-klahoma, where Hugh Jackman knows enough to sing its praises.
Oh, what a beautiful morning it will be for some to see the Sooners play at 9:30 a.m. Saturday.
Everything's going their way, after all the upsets last week.
Enjoy the stay. Not like Baylor (even in Wacko Waco) will make it a short one. The Oklahoma schedule (linked here) includes the big one against Texas in Dallas the next week.
Until then:

THE LOCALS:

Saturday:
=5 p.m., Channel 7: Oregon at USC (with Mark Jones, Bob Davie and Todd Harris)
=7:15 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket: Washington State at UCLA (with Bill Macdonald, James Washington, Jackie Pinkering and Dain Blanton) (repeated at 11:15 p.m.)

It's Carl Sandberg versus "Beverly Hills, 90210" for intellectual entertainment.
White Castle against Tommy's and In-n-Out as the fast-food burger delicacy.
The Sears Tower next to Randy's Donuts as an architectural marvel.
Al Capone face-to-face with Snoop Dogg in the gansta superstar world.
Before Greg Maddox gets confused as which to dugout he's supposed to go for Game 1 on Wednesday, here's our tale of the tape, L.A. vs. Chicago and Dodgers vs. Cubs:

He's gonna blow the lid off his own steroid use, and from there, we'll see how far it goes.
To promote his new book, "My Dirty Little Secrets - Steroids, Alcohol & God - The Tony Mandarich Story," which doesn't even come out until March, 2009, former NFL player Tony Mandarich has a sit-down with Armen Keteyian for Showtime's "Inside the NFL" (Wednesday, 9 p.m.), where he admits he used anabolic steroids while at Michigan State -- which included cheating on a drug test for the Rose Bowl -- and an addiction to pain killers while with the Green Bay Packers.

From the press release issued today:

On no one knowing he entered the NFL addicted to pain killers and alcohol, assuming his poor performance was a result of a stoppage in steroid use:

Mandarich: There's other factors that were involved that nobody knows about that were way more of an effect on why I had the huge downfall in Green Bay than steroids (such as) drug and alcohol abuse...I was injecting a drug called staydal...and it was euphoric. I went from doing one injection on that one day, and a week later I was doing between 5-7 shots-a-day for the next three years.

Keteyian: You went into Green Bay essentially a drug addict?

Mandarich: Mmm hmm, not the same, not the same person they drafted...I got to the point where it was a struggle to workout three or four times-a-week because the priority of getting high was above the priority of working out.

The NFL schedule-maker gave Oakland a best bye this week. Al Davis may finally use the time to assess life as he sees it, and give Lane Kiffin a head start on that Syracuse job for next season.
Or at Best Buy.

UPDATE at 11:30 p.m. today: Yes, Davis did finally pull the plug. Stay tuned for more drama.

The Rams also have a bye week, and they've used it wisely. Handing out a key pink slip.
The Jets have a bye week, giving Brett Favre time to figure out which uniform to try on next.
And Cleveland also has a bye. For no apparent reason.
These teams, though, are playing. And you're watching, unless there's an MLB playoff game in the way:

SUNDAY:

==10 a.m., Channel 2: San Diego at Miami (with Gus Johnson and Steve Tasker), while CBS skips out on Tennessee-Baltimore, Kansas City-Carolina and Indianapolis-Houston.

==10 a.m., Channel 11: Seattle at the N.Y. Giants (with Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston and Tony Siragusa). Our guess was that Fox would have gone with Washington-Philadelphia (with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman), but ... Fox also could have picked from Chicago-Detroit or Atlanta-Green Bay.

==1 p.m., Channel 2: Cincinnati at Dallas (with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms). CBS avoids Buffalo-Arizona and New England-San Francisco (with Dick Enberg-Randy Cross), while Fox has only Tampa Bay-Denver to offer in this window.

==5:15 p.m, Channel 4: Pittsburgh at Jacksonville (with Al Michaels, John Madden and Andrea Kremer)

MONDAY:

==5:30 p.m., ESPN: Minnesota at New Orleans (with Ron Jaworski ... plus Mike Tirico and Tony Kornheiser).

It happened during the Angels Rally tonight at Anaheim Stadium, the fan-friendly festival where the team can sell a bunch of "West Division Champion!" gear all in the name of stirring up the locals before the playoffs start.

As the festivities took place on FSN West, a bunch of former Angels took the stage, and the great second baseman, Bobby Grich, grabbed the mike to inspire the fans with an "Angels spellout."

Which went:

"Gimme an A"
"Gimme an N"
"Gimme an G"
"Gimme an L"
"Gimme an S"
"What's that spell?"

The crowd cried out: "Angels!"
Instead of "Angls"

If you're scoring at home, the E4.

Reports in the current issues of MediaWeek and Broadcasting & Cable magazines indicate changes coming at ESPN and Fox Sports Net as far as how they'll be programmed down the road.

It's not so much reinventing the news wheel. It's just that maybe it needs to refocus on what's most important to its audiences.

ESPN, for example, wants more live events and fewer studio filler, says executive VP of content John Skipper . "We have found that what sports fans really care about, and why they come to ESPN properties is to watch live games," he said, adding that the network will "continue to pursue deals for more major college games, and will look to get additional rights to major professional tennis and golf events when they become available." That could mean trying to get the NHL back, as well as align themselves for some kind of future Olympics coverage. (MediaWeek story linked here).

Meanwhile, FSN could be scaling back on national programming and focus more on local coverage. The national shows, such as "Sport Science," "Amazing Sports Stories," "Baseball's Golden Age" and ... oh, right, "Best Damn Sports Show Period," could be the first to go. Former coordinating producer John Entz just left to join the MLB Network. (B&C story linked here).

The 24/7 MLB Network, scheduled to launch on Jan. 1, 2009 in about 50 million homes -- will yours be one of 'em? -- with live games, original programming, highlights, classic games and a bunch of other ... stuff it hasn't figured out yet ... has at least brought on some people who know what they're doing.
In addition to former CBS exec Tony Petitti running the show, the MLB Net announced today that former Fox Sports Net executive producer John Entz and former NFL Network director of program planning Andy Butters have come aboard to make your stay more pleasurable.
Entz will be "responsible for overseeing the look and presentation" of the studio and game coverage. He most recently did the MLB All-Star Game red carpet show (oooooh) and the BCS pregame specials (aaaaaah) at Fox, and -- this is the clincher -- was the head guy at "Best Damn Sports Show Period" (eeeeeeechhh).

Best Damn MLB Network. We smell a new slogan.

Butters will be responsible for "developing the network's on air program schedule." Sorry, there's nothing really special in putting that description in quotes. Just wanted to be consistent. Butters was at NFL Net since 2006, and also worked for 16 years at ESPN.

First, to finish off the AL Central:

Today, 11 a.m., ESPN2: Detroit Tigers at Chicago White Sox make-up game, with Dave O'Brien, Orel Hershiser and Steve Phillips
If the Sox win, then a one-game playoff to determine the AL Central...

Tuesday, 4:30 p.m., TBS: Minnesota Twins at Chicago White Sox, with Dick Stockton, Ron Darling and Harold Reynolds (with Marc Fein reporting) (Pregame starts at 4 p.m. with Ernie Johnson, Cal Ripken Jr., and Dennis Eckersley)

Finally, to the real post season (the MLB schedule linked here) and the reason why you'll want to tune into the radio -- KABC-AM (790) for the Dodgers and KLAA-AM (830) for the Angels; or to KSPN-AM (710) for the ESPN Radio national broadcast -- because the Angels-Red Sox team is the underwhelming Chip Caray on play-by-play, while the (fill in the blank about someone who we just don't see as relevant any longer) Dick Stockton is handing the Dodgers-Cubs games with his description:

Wednesday, Oct. 1:

11:30 a.m. TBS: Pregame with Ernie Johnson, Cal Ripken Jr., and Curtis Granderson.
Noon, TBS: Milwaukee at Philadelphia Game 1, with Brian Anderson, Joe Simpson and John Smoltz (David Aldridge reporting).
3:30 p.m., TBS: Dodgers at Chicago Cubs Game 1 with Dick Stockton, Ron Darling and Tony Gwynn (Tom Verducci reporting).
7 p.m., TBS: Boston at Angels Game 1 with Chip Caray and Buck Martinez (Craig Sager reporting)

Thursday:

11 a.m., TBS: Pregame studio: Johnson, Ripken, Granderson, Eckersley.
11:30 a.m., TBS: Chicago White Sox/Minnesota Twins at Tampa Bay Game 1 with Don Orsillo and Harold Reynolds (Fein reporting)
3 p.m., TBS: Milwaukee Brewers at Philadelphia Phillies Game 2
6:30 p.m., TBS: Dodgers at Chicago Cubs Game 2 with Stockton, Darling and Gwynn (Verducci reporting)

Friday:

2:30 p.m., TBS: Pregame show
3 p.m., TBS: Chicago White Sox/Minnesota Twins at Tampa Bay Rays Game 2 with Orsillo and Reynolds (Fein reporting)
6:30 p.m., TBS: Boston Red Sox at Angels Game 2 with Caray and Martinez (Sager reporting)

Saturday:

3 p.m., TBS: Pregame show
3:30 p.m., TBS: Philadelphia Phillies at Milwaukee Brewers Game 3 with Anderson, Simpson and Smoltz (Aldridge reporting).
7 p.m., TBS: Chicago Cubs at Dodgers Game 3 with Stockton, Darling and Gwynn (Verducci reporting).

Sunday:

TBD: Angels at Boston Red Sox Game 3
TBD: Tampa Bay Rays at Chicago White Sox/Minnesota Twins Game 3
TBD: Philadelphia Phillies at Milwaukee Brewers Game 4*
TBD: Chicago Cubs at Dodgers Game 4*

*-if necessary

ON RADIO:
Dodgers-Cubs series: Vin Scully does the first three and last three innings on KABC-AM (790), with Charley Steiner and Rick Monday filling in the middle three.
ESPN Radio is using Jon Miller and Rick Sutcliffe

Angels-Red Sox series: Rory Markas and Terry Smith do all the games for KLAA-AM (830).
ESPN Radio is using Dan Shulman and Dave Campbell.

On the other series, ESPN Radio has Michael Kay and analyst Steve Phillips on the Milwaukee-Philadelphia series; Gary Thorne and analyst Chris Singleton do the AL Central winner-Tampa Bay series.

In today's column (linked here), KABC-AM (790) "DodgerTalk" co-host and veteran Hollywood script writer Ken Levine admits he's both amused and honored that the team last week agreed to have the Pacific Coast League's Albuquerque Isotopes become its Triple-A affiliate.

But hardly more the richers. He'll probably never see a residual check for having named the Isotopes way back when, as a joke, no less.

It was maybe a throw-away line in an episode of "The Simpsons" that he and writing partner David Isaacs came up with for a 1990 episode. But the 'Topes opponent that night -- the Shelbyville Shelbyvillians -- was even more of a joke, Levine admits.

"It's just a funny name, like a lot of teams are," he said. "The Dodgers are just another example. It's sort of a random word that really doesn't mean anything. Does anyone under 30 even stop to think why the Dodgers are named the Dodgers? Or the Lakers are called the Lakers? What does that have to do with anything here?"

Springfield became the Isotopes because of the fact it had a nuclear power plant. An isotope is (linked here) an unstable atom, a Greek word adopted by a chemist in 1913 who won the Nobel Prize in 1921 for his work on radioactive substances. It also works as a term for New Mexico, which has plenty of scientific and military sites that work with nuclear technology and did testing long ago.

Now it's full circle for Levine, a Valley native who grew up embracing the Albuquerque Dukes as the farm team of his beloved Dodgers. And he'll get to talk about them nightly during the season the radio.

"I look forward next year on the Dodgers post-game show to talk about how the minor-league teams have been doing, and then say, ' 'Topes win!'" said Levine.

One of the inside jokes in that "Dancing Homer" episode was how Levine, who did the voice for the 'Topes' play-by-play man named Dan Hoard (which is the same name of the broadcaster he worked with in the International League in Syracuse), proclaimed an Isotopes' victory -- " 'Topes win! 'Topes win!" as if he were Russ Hodges screaming about the New York Giants beating the Brooklyn Dodgers for the 1951 pennant.

The explanation on Wikipedia is fairly accurate about how the 'Topes were named (linked here), except for the fact that Levine actually created the name for the local Springfield team in an episode called "Dancing Homer," (linked here).

It was fifth episode of the series' second season -- the stone-aged years of "Simpsons" lore. Here's a link to Levine's blog entry of the script for that episode (linked here) which gives great detail into what they were trying to do, based on the fact they were dealing with animators, not actors, in moving the story alone.

Like this dialogue:
HOMER: You know, boy, some of the players you see tonight may make it to the big leagues, one day.
BART: What? Aren't we going to see any washed-up major leaguers?
HOMER: Sure, we get a nice mix here.

The passing of actor Paul Newman, the "coolest hand in Hollywood" according to the headline in the San Jose Mercury (linked here), is reference to the sports-genre movie credit that he may best known for, outside of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."
That was for playing poker -- which we'll allow as a sport, since ESPN broadcasts it now as one. In the 1967 "Cool Hand Luke," Newman became the coolest.
Twice, he played pool. In the 1961 "The Hustler," and the 1986 sequel, "The Color of Money," where he won the best actor Oscar.
In the 1956 adaptation of middle-weight boxing champion Rocky Graziano's life, "Somebody Up There Likes Me," Newman played the role after James Dean was killed in a car accident before the start of production.
He raced cars, for real and in movies, such as in the 1969 flick, "Winning," as Frank Capua.
But, when our arm is twisted (not very hard), the spot we stop at on his IMDB.com site (linked here) is as our coach, Reg Dunlop, in "Slap Shot" (1977), of which New Yorker critic Pauline Kael wrote: "Even when he plays a bastard, he's not a big bastard -- only a callow, selfish one, like Hud....His likableness is infectious; nobody should ever be asked not to like Paul Newman."

We direct you to this obit written by ESPN's Terry Frei (linked here).

Just read the list of famous quotes from the movie, many attributed to Newman's character (linked here).

So put on the foil, check out this ESPN story (click here), and watch the video:

(Tina Birch/Daily News Staff Photographer)

Can't really put into words how neat it was to see a bunch of kids who just got out of school gather in the center park of Oxnard -- kids benefitting from the City Impact organization (linked here), a non-profit that helps at-risk families in Ventura County -- and get to meet and receive autographs from Mike and Bob Bryan during a ceremony in Oxnard on Friday.

Talk about some hometown heroes.

(I also finally figured out how to tell the two apart -- Bob, on the left, above, always wears the brown necklace. And he wears his watch on his right arm, because he's left-handed. Mike, as you can see, wears the watch on the left arm because he's a righty ... just so you know).

The city wanted to honor the Camarillo-based Bryan brothers for their new philanthropic endeavor -- the Bryan Brothers Foundation (find it at this link), which starts with a fundraiser Saturday at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks during a day-long pro-am tennis tournament and dinner/silent auction. Andre Agassi is the main attraction. We have a story about it in Saturday's Daily News (linked here).

Wayne Bryan, the 30-year-old twin's dad, said the two put in $100,000 of their own money to launch the foundation.

The other news to come out of the event was that Bob, whose left shoulder is ailing from tendinitis and a slight tear, still needs three more weeks of rest before he can even consider practicing again.

The two plan to play in a masters event in Spain later this month, but perhaps that won't include Bob.

He explained how he had to endure through the pain just to get the recent men's doubles title wrapped up at the U.S. Open in New York.

"I knew I was in trouble during the Olympics," said Bob, referring to the Beijing Games, when the pair ended up taking the bronze medal for the U.S. "I had to take a coritzone shot two days before (the Open), some anti-inflamatories, and then I played 10 straight days without practice just to get through. My doctor said I shouldn't have played. By the time it was over, I couldn't lift my left arm."

Which isn't good, since Bob, again, is a lefty.

He thinks there will be plenty of time for him to prepare for their next Grand Slam event -- the Australian Open in January. The two from Rio Mesa High have already won a career grand slam on their resume.

The dinner for Saturday's event is sold out, but tickets remain for the pro-am and exhibition from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

More on the brothers:

==Their official website (linked here, as opposed to their old official site, linked here)

==The Ventura County Star story on Friday's event (linked here)

CBS' press release today touting its coverage on "The NFL Today" included this note:

Last week, analyst Solomon Wilcots, who was calling the Miami-New England game, reported on THE NFL TODAY that Miami running back Ronnie Brown would get his first start of the season for the Dolphins. According to Dave Richards of CBSSports.com, 76% of the fantasy players who had Brown on their team did not play him.

I saw the show. I saw Wilcots' report. I don't have a fantasy team. But I activated Brown anyway. Just to show I was smart. Because I don't play CBSSports fantasy games. I have my own game. It's in my head. I make up the rules as I feel like.

No, not really. I just made that whole story up.

(Trade secrets revealed below):
I rarely watch CBS' pregame show. Especially since they took off that Thurston Long dude. it's all New York based, and it smells New York based.
I never watch ESPN's pregame show. Chris Berman. Enough said.
I most times catch Fox's pregame show, after the NFL Network pregame shows.
I TiVo them all.
I erase most before even getting around to watch. I fast forward through the others in case something imploded.
Honestly, I'm too busy checking my financial portfolio, pouring myself a cup of Joe, and trying to assess where I'll find the money to eat dog food when I hit the age of 65. Then I head out to El Burrito Jr. for a tamale, two hard tacos, a Diet Coke, and the newspaper to catch up on what I slept through the day before. That's after going to church, to pray that I have money when I'm 65 and can afford a plate of cat food (I know I said dog food earlier, but I want some variety in my life).

So, how do you spend your Sunday mornings, fantasy geek?

We've got these notes that stayed in the dolphin-safe media net and wanted to swim free (again, after trying to figure out why the networks who pay MLB rights fees decided to ignore the Tampa Bay Rays this season, in a column linked here):

==NBC, fresh off the Ryder Cup coverage, has eight hours from the season-ending PGA Tour event, the Tour Championship in Atlanta (Saturday from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.). As you may already know, Vijay Singh has clinched the trophy and the first place prize of $10 million. So how did Vijay do in the Ryder Cup? Must have missed his matches.
Ten members of the victorious U.S. Ryder Cup team made this 30-player field: Anthony Kim, Phil Mickelson, Chad Campbell, Justin Leonard, Hunter Mahan, Stewart Cink, Kenny Perry, Steve Stricker, Ben Curtis and Jim Furyk. And Kim has a ridiculous four-stroke lead after the first round.
NBC broadcaster Dan Hicks had this quip about Kim, who grew up in Studio City: "There are players who are great players and there are players who are great and entertaining and Anthony Kim has that quality. He has charisma and the game to go with it. He has that Tiger thing going where you can't wait to see what he's going to do next."

==FSN West has blocked out two hours to present taped coverage of last week's AVP Manhattan Beach Open, starting Saturday with the men's final (10 a.m.) and women's final (11 a.m.). The tape-delayed coverage of the women's finals that aired on Fox (KTTV Channel 11) on Sunday before its NFL coverage (or after the NFL game in some markets) did a 1.0 rating and 2 share.

==CBS college football analyst Gary Danielson, whose entire schedule of games this season will be SEC teams, including Saturday's Tennessee-Auburn contest (12:30 p.m., Channel 2), says this about the conference (provided by a CBS press release): "Last week, of the top three games, five SEC teams were involved and they unbelievably exceeded expectations. Tennessee had a rough one, but the other four teams, Florida, Georgia, LSU and Auburn, really put on a show. They again solidified to the nation that when it comes to college football in 2008, nobody can match up with this conference."
They left out the exclamation point.

==SCVTV in Santa Clarita will do the Alemany-Saugus contest tonight at 11 p.m. with Dave Caldwell and Tony Moskal.

In addition to today's column (linked here), we found out:

==The NFL's Week 4 TV schedule (linked here), focused on San Diego-Oakland (Kiffin still around?)

==College football's Week 5 TV schedule (linked here; sorry, it's already outdated with the USC-Oregon State game completed, but the Saturday lineup should be helpful, since we've been receiving calls in the office asking why we can't run the entire weekend TV schedule any longer -- space, of course, is the reason -- so we try to get this out as early as possible now, usually Tuesday)

==The MLB regular-season home stretch schedule (linked here), and why some teams are all tapped out when it comes to putting them on Fox's regional wrap-around coverage on Saturday (USA Today story linked here).

==The WNBA's TV plans (linked here).

==And other essential stuff, like:

=Joe Torre has a blog (linked here)

=More behind the changes at KLAC-AM (570), switching out Joe McDonnell for Tony Bruno (linked here, and here, and here)

=How Dick Enberg remembers Lyman Bostock (linked here)

=The clip surfaces of Al Michaels on "Hawaii Five-O" back in 1970 (linked here)

=Why we like Pat Jordan's new "best of" book (linked here)

=Why the Dodgers could be a (Ron) Darling pick for the playoffs (linked here)

=How ESPN decided to throw a giant college basketball marathon party in mid-November, but didn't find any Southern California teams worthy of inviting (linked here)

=Where to find "Friday Night Lights" this season (hint, not on Fridays, nor on NBC) (linked here)

=What Colin Cowherd and Lucy Van Pelt could have in common (linked here)

=The Cowboys-Packers' grip over the Emmys on a national basis (but not in L.A.) last Sunday (linked here)

=And why the media is still infatuated with Fred Merkel's Boner 100 years later (linked here).

==Plus, we checked in on:

=Why the Raiders still hate anyone who goes against their "Committment to Excellence" mantra, even if they don't any longer (a link to the San Jose Mercury News' Tim Kawakami's confrontation explanation, along with video).

=Will Ferrell ("Talladega Nights," "Blades of Glory," "Semi-Pro" ... what are we missing) says he's done doing sports movies (USA Today story linked here). "I'm retired from sports-genre films. You know, I think I filled my quota," Ferrell said.

=How NBA broadcasters are being schooled by referees about what really happens in a game (New York Times story linked here).

=Does the Chicago media contribute to the idea that Cubs' fans need to get hammered after a big victory? Or an upcoming playoff game? (story linked here). It's in response to a Chicago city edict that bars not serve after the seventh inning any more, to keep fans from getting to stupid (story linked here).

=Former ABC "Monday Night Football" crash-n-burn sideliner Lisa Guerrero wants to blog about stuff like ... her appreciation of big butts (SportsByBrooks entry linked here).

Just a reminder:

The new season of the drama series "Friday Night Lights," begins on DirecTV Channel 101 on Wednesday (6 p.m., 9 p.m., before it starts airing on NBC in February, '09 (story linked here). That's part of a deal that DirecTV did with the network to help the show with sagging ratings develope some kind of buzz before it returned to regular TV.

The season debut description off the DirecTV menu:

"After the championship loss, Coach struggles to keep his job while helping Smash recover. A new family arrives. As Principal, Tami makes some tough decisions. Tensions rise between Lyla and Riggins. Billy proposes. Will Tyra make it to college?"

Jeez, that's all the storylines they can squeeze into a one-hour show?

Whatever happens, the editors of The Big Lead don't want to hear about it (linked here). Although, with a show that has some connection to E. Buzz Bissinger, we're not sure we're so keen on keeping up with it any longer, even with DTV access.

Ron Darling, the Mets' TV analyst who'll be working for TBS this postseason, had this to say about the Dodgers' chances, and reviewing the Dodgers' season, on a conference call with reporters this morning:

"I've known Joe Torre a long time, and if you remember, they made that trip to China and half the team went and half the team didn't. In speaking with Joe, he said the most difficult part for him in the first half was trying to evaluate who could play and who couldn't play. A lot of that advice came from his coaches, but until he saw them firsthand he (wasn't) able to evaluate and figure out who fit where on that team. And of course, getting (Manny) Ramirez, a motivated Ramirez, is about as good as you can get. He's made a huge difference for that team.
"Yes, they have a record that is barely above .500, but I don't think you've heard anyone who knows the game say that they are going to be an easy team because of their record. If anyone takes the Dodgers lightly they are going to be in trouble."

A team like the Mets could take the Dodgers lightly, if they meet in the post-season. But then, the Mets would have to get there first to take anyone lightly.

All it apparently took was an embarassing 23-7 loss to Michigan State last week for Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen to decided that it was enough with the long hair.
The former Oaks Christian High star was flagged for clipping this week.
On the Notre Dame official site, Clausen, the former Oaks Christian High star, explains why he decided to do it (linked here):

"I cut it off, as you can see. I don't know why I really did it. But one of the things I said was, I've been growing it out for a long time, I said if we lost, once we lost, I'd cut it off. Had to cut it off. ... It was getting old, so... "

Meanwhile, NBC's Notre Dame analyst Pat Haden, said it about the Irish's game coming up against Purdue (Saturday, Channel 4, 11:30 a.m.): "Jimmy Clausen is clearly playing better than a year ago. He is stronger and much more confident, and has found a big time threat in Golden Tate."

Golden Tate may still be golden. But not Clausen's hair.

We gotta assume it's Dodgers manager Joe Torre who has time to crank out a blog, even for a sponsor who has put him in those comical commercials showing him adjusting to L.A. life by pounding down wheatgrass drinks, learning to surf and yoga, and strutting around town with a pocket poodle in his arms.

We found a link to what's being sold as a Torre blog (linked here), which comes off the MLB.com page, but also off a sponsored link to the car insurance company (linked here), where you can also see extended clips from the TV spots that have been running all year (one, for example, that hasn't been seen is Torre getting out of his car to an army of paparazzi, only to find out they weren't interested in him but some Lohan-like character who ducks into a restaurant).

There are only eight entries on the blog so far, which appears to have started when he had some free time about a month ago. That first one included this paragraph:

I'll be figuring out this blogging thing since I'm a little behind the times. For example, I saw one of those little candy Valentine's hearts printed with "LOL" and thought it was a typo right up until I started reading about blogs and Web acronyms. I mean, WTF(udge), right?

Yeah, right. Fudge.

Colin Cowherd had "an epiphany last night," he said during his ESPN Radio show this morning.

While he was in the company of "three beautiful women," the sports-talk show host was being asked for his advice on relationships. He obliged. They "were fascinated" by what he had to say.

So, being the deep thinker that he is, he thought some more about it.

"I'm going to talk to my agent today to see about starting up a relationship talk show," Cowherd proclaimed.

Seriously.

A recent Associated Press story (linked here) took the possibility of the Dodgers and Angels surviving through the playoffs to somehow meet in the World Series to see who out there would buy it.

Since 1961, when the two teams existed together in L.A., they've only made the playoffs together one other time -- 2004, and both were knocked out in the first round.

Writer John Nadal tracked down Marc Ludwick and Karen Hollyfield, season ticket-holders at Dodger Stadium who live in Santa Clarita and make the 80-mile round trip to Dodger Stadium, as well as the 140-mile trip to Angels Stadium to see them play as well.

Hollyfield said she'd probably root for the Dodgers in a Freeway World Series.

"It's never going to happen, though," she said. "We'll be lucky if they go to the playoffs and win one game. The Angels are fantastic, though."

Said Ludwick: "It's a rivalry matchup that's long overdue. I think the city would certainly relish seeing that World Series matchup. We have exhibitions and the interleague play between them, but that would really be something."

TBS begins the MLB playoff coverage with three of the four to-be-determined pairings on Wednesday. We're curious as to how well received the Tampa Bay Devil Rays will be received. Have you seen a Rays game from start to finish yet this season?

That's what we'll get into with Friday's media column, as well as some of the other burning issues of the media day. Just as soon as we put on our oven mitt and figure out what those are.

That, of course, is a photo of the Marathon Brewery Wee Willy basketball team -- brothers Joe, Wally, Alex and Frank Szymanski in the first row, brothers Ray and Ed Szymanski in the second row along with Larence Wenzel, Bob Uekert and Bill Fischer. They won more than 500 games during the 1940s and '50s representing Marathon City, Wisc.

If only ESPN could schedule them for their upcoming "Tip-Off Marathon." Along with the guarantee of a few extra kegs in the deal.

ESPN, which can pretty much dictate to any school when its basketball games will be played, has decided to turn it up to 11 and give eveyrone a spinal tap of roundball that may only make Dick Vitale's heath situation go from mellow yellow to code red on the color-bar chart.

The world wide leader announced today that its "Tip-Off Marathon" will air over 23 hours live starting at 9 p.m. on Nov. 17 (after a Cleveland-Buffalo "Monday Night Football" telecast) and end ... well ... 23 hours later, of course. With 33 total hours covered.

You know, it's just crazy enough to work. And you know someone with a blog and too much time on their hands will try to watch the whole thing and document it minute by minute (sorry, boss, it ain't happening on this end).

Maybe he's just preparing for the day soon when the Dodgers drop him after this season ends, and he goes off to marry Carolyn Hughes and needs a much, much bigger place.

Or maybe Derek Lowe is just tired of Manhattan Beach. And his abode isn't covered in any pre-nup.

No, we're not gonna speculate as to why we see his home on 19th Street in the Great UpperClass Sandbox of the South Bay on the market for $5.7 million (link here), according to Real Estalker.com.

They report that his four bedroom, two full bathroom and two half bathroom place that's taking up 4,620 square feet of our space and has two ocean-view decks is something he paid $5 mil for in July, 2006.

Hmmm, now wasn't that right about the time when ...

Just go see what the Boston Herald is also reporting (linked here).

This week's "MLS Primetime Thursday: game on ESPN makes sure you feel depressed in today's economy. The league's two highest-paid players -- the Galaxy's David Beckham, and Chicago's Cuauhtemoc Blanco -- compare wallet sizes on the pitch at 6 p.m. Thursday.

It also marks the start of the series' celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. So while JP Dellacamera, John Harkes and Allen Hopkins do the English-language commentary from something called Toyota Park in Bridgefield, Ill., ESPN Deportes will have Fernando Palomo and Giovanni Savarese call it in Espanol. Rob Stone and Julie Foudy will host pre-, halftime and post-game from ESPN's Bristol, Conn., studios.

So what does Hispanic Heritage Month mean? A lot of Latin music on the telecast. A special message to start the show from Blanco. A poll on ESPN's Soccernet.com to determine the "Most influential Hispanic player in MLS history" (linked here).

And Beckham wearing a sombrero.
Maybe.
Probably not.
But maybe.

There is, by the way, a thing called a "sombrero galaxy" (linked here), a picture of which is above -- that's at the top of this posting, not down the right side -- as seen through the Hubble Space Telescope.
Other than that, we won't go Carl Sagan on you other than to speculate that, in any galaxy out there beyond the black hole, there must be some civilization that enjoys a good, spicy salsa.

Maybe you've heard through various second-, third- and fourth-hand sources (aw, for heaven sakes, do a Google search once and a while for "WNBA" and "not yet disbanded") that the WNBA's Sparks have to play their one and only home playoff game in their upcoming Western Conference finals series against Becky Hammon and the San Antonio Russians Silver Stars at the Galen Center near the USC campus, because Staples Center is busy hosting ... does it matter?

How'd you like to get kicked out of your cavernous, empty-seat, big-time stadium/arena and get sent down the street to play in an intimate, college facility that brings star center Lisa Leslie back before her former pre-WNBA family?

As far as TV goes, all we got at this point:

Thursday Game 1 at Galen Center: 7:30 p.m., NBA TV
Saturday Game 2 at San Antonio: noon, NBA TV
Sunday Game 3* at San Antonio: 2 p.m., ESPN2 (with Terry Gannon, Doris Burke and Heather Cox. Gannon, by the way, is that the Rose Bowl on Saturday to do the UCLA-Fresno State football game.)
*-only if it's really, really necessary.

No, the four MLB playoff pairings haven't been determined, and probably won't until maybe the last game of the regular-season Sunday. Too many magic numbers and a lot of different playoff combos still to be sorted out.

A reminder: TBS carries all the first-round stuff, a staggering schedule that will have up to three games a day, and spill-over onto TNT if a game runs long into the start of another. TBS will also have tie-breakers on Monday and/or Tuesday if needed. The playoffs start Wednesday, and TBS also has the following ALCS (with Fox taking the NLCS and World Series).

What's coming up as the Dodgers try to finish things off, the Angels try to avoid more injury, and the Brewers, Mets, Phillies, White Sox and Twins angle for the last spots:

TONIGHT:

==4 p.m., ESPN: Chicago Cubs at New York Mets (with Dave O'Brien and Rick Sutcliffe)
==7 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket: San Diego Padres at Dodgers (with Vin Scully)
==7 p.m., FSN West: Angels at Seattle Mariners (with Rory Markas and Mark Gubicza)

THURSDAY:

==7 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket: San Diego Padres at Dodgers (with Vin Scully)
==7 p.m., FSN West: Angels at Seattle Mariners (with Rory Markas and Mark Gubicza)

FRIDAY:

== 5 p.m., ESPN: Chicago Cubs at Milwaukee Brewers (with Dan Shulman, Orel Hershiser and Steve Phillips). It's the network's final regular-season telecast. Boo-hoo.
==7 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket: Dodgers at San Francisco Giants (with Vin Scully)
==7 p.m., FSN West: Texas Rangers at Angels (with Rory Markas and Mark Gubicza)

SATURDAY:

==12:55 p.m., KTTV Channel 11: Fox decided on Thursday that it will go with Chicago Cubs-Milwaukee with (Josh Lewin and Tim McCarver) for the L.A. market (and 32 percent of the country). It will also cut into N.Y. Yankees-Boston (with Dick Stockton and Jerry Remy), Philadelphia hosting Washington and Minnesota hosting Kansas City. Why no New York Mets-Florida?
==6 p.m., KCOP Channel 13: Texas Rangers at Angels (with Rory Markas and Mark Gubicza)
==6 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket: Dodgers at San Francisco (with Vin Scully)

SUNDAY:

==10 a.m., TBS: Florida Marlins at New York Mets (with Chip Caray and Harold Reynolds) -- this could be the last game ever played at Shea Stadium.
==1 p.m., KCAL Channel 9: Dodgers at San Francisco Giants (with Vin Scully)
==12:30 p.m., FSN West: Texas Rangers at Angels (with Rory Markas and Mark Gubicza)

Into the postseason:
KSPN-AM (710) will have the ability to carry the ESPN Radio feed of all playoff contests -- including games that involve the Angels and Dodgers, even though their flagship stations (830-AM and 790-AM, respectively) will also have them (the Dodgers using Scully for all games, doing the first three and last three innings, with Charley Steiner and Rick Monday in the middle three). The only possible conflict for KSPN is USC football live games, but MLB playoffs take precident over any Clippers exhibition games or "Monday Night Football" broadcasts.

Heads up: The outstanding 2007 documentary "Second Chance Season" on former Cleveland High and USC standout Nick Young airs tonight at 7:30 p.m. on ESPN2.
The official movie site (linked here) has the trailer that pretty much explains what's going on with the story here -- cameras follow Young through his senior year at Cleveland to see if he can attain an 820 SAT score in order to get into USC, overcoming all kinds of long-term residual affects and setbacks that included having a brother murdered, which led to Young dropping out of Dorsey High before he transfered.
The Daniel Forer directed and co-produced doc debuted in June, '07 at the L.A. Film Festival to strong reviews.
Young, who left USC after his junior year in '07, has been with the Washington Wizards entering his second season. He had a career-high 27 points against the Lakers last March.
Forer said ESPN has a 15-year licensing agreement to air the film as it sees fit -- and with NBA camps opening soon, a network spokesperson said that was the reason behind putting it on tonight.
Forer also notes that his doc, as well as "Kickin' It" on the Homeless Cup soccer tournament, was edited by Sherman Oaks' Jeff Werner.

Picture a gray bearded man with an Hawaiian shirt, flip flops, chomping on a cigar, enjoying life in Florida.

That's Pat Jordan, a failed minor-league pitcher who became one of the most insightful sports journalists of this era.

"The Best Sports Writing of Pat Jordan" (edited by Alex Belth, $27.95, Persea Brooks, 450 pages) (linked here) has finally found its way into book stores, thanks to Belth, an SI.com writer and blogger at Bronx Banter on the Baseball Toaster network who interviewed Jordan to find out what makes him tick, and ended up pulling together some 26 stories (from more than 100 submissions) into this hardbound treasure.

What do we know about Jordan? He's been called a "New Journalist" who uses that "novelistic technique" like Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese (the later of which Jordan admits to admiring the most in his career, calling him his greatest influence).

In a previous book, "A False Spring" (linked here and linked here), released in 1975 and again in paperback in 2005, Jordan painfully recounts his failed attempt to pitch in the big-leagues, while "A Nice Tuesday" memoir picks up three decades later, trying to pitch again at age 56.

Jordan probably didn't come into many L.A. radars until a 1980 story for Inside Sports called "Trouble in Paradise," which started with this paragraph:

"This is a story about Southern California and baseball, and sex, and fame, and wealth, and beauty, and the American Dream."

It was about Steve and Cyndi Garvey, and how the Dodgers all-everything first baseman may not have been the all-everything husband to his wife as they lived in Calabasas and tried to put up this facade of everything's all good. Cyndi, the unsatisfied spouse who was co-hosting a local L.A. talk show with Regis Philbin at the time, was the one who really let it all out, which was all on tape, which helped when the Garveys sued Jordan, Inside Sports and parent company Newsweek for $11.2 million in a libel claim that never went to trial.

Garvey, Jordan notes in a Q-and-A at the end of this book, spent $450,000 in legal fees, but all of that was for the public relations spin as they went on talk shows to give "their side" of the story.

The entire story is included in this book, as are profiles of Greg Louganis, Roger Clemens, Venus and Serena Williams, Pete Rose Jr., Wilt Chamberlain , Tom Seaver and O.J. Simpson, done for various publications over the years. They are divided into "Fame" and "Obscurity" -- the later of which Jordan probably connects to best, based on his experiences as a failed athlete. Another story on the Duquesne, Pa., high school football team in 1980 for Geo Magazine, by the way, eventually was the inspiration for the Tom Cruise movie, "All The Right Moves," and that's included here.

So are all the right stories.

In addition to the beautiful story Jill Painter did for today's Daily News (linked here) on the 30th anniversary of Lyman Bostock's murder, and the legacy that he has left at Cal State Northridge with an alumni game in his honor as well as a scholarship fund that continues to help student-athletes, we tracked down Dick Enberg, the CBS sportscaster and former San Fernando Valley State professor/assistant baseball coach for his remembrances today.

Enberg helped with initial contributions to the Lyman Bostock Memorial Fund that was established soon after his passing because of the kinship felt with Bostock, a San Fernando Valley State star player before he was drafted by Minnesota and came to the Angels as a free agent for his one and only season, 1978.

"I was so proud as an announcer to say that Bostock played his ball with the Matadors," said Enberg, the Angels' broadcaster from 1969 to '81. "They weren't giving out scholarships for a long time, and it really started as a grass-roots program, so any time anyone made it to the big leagues from Northridge, it made us all feel a special allegiance."

It made Enberg recall another former San Fernando Valley State player, pitcher Paul Edmondson, (Wikipedia bio linked here), who was the first Matador to make it to the big-leagues with the Chicago White Sox in 1967. Edmondson also met a tragic fate, having died in a car accident in the off season on his way to spring training in 1970.

He was 27 -- the same age as Bostock when he was murdered.

There was no Viagra or Cialis ads on the New York Giants' radio broadcasts in 1908. Heck, there were no radio broadcasts.
But we rememeber Fred Merkle and his, ahem, well-chronicled boner -- which actually was his old-school twist on the walk-of,f game-winning hit before it became fashionable.
Keith Olbermann , back in his days as a sportscaster at KTLA-Channel 5, loved to retell the story year after year, with a cardboard cutout of Merkle, about how on Sept. 23, 1908, during one of baseball's great pennant races, Merkle changed his team's fortunes by doing something kinda stupid.
Olbermann, the current MSNBC "Countdown" host, NBC "Sunday Night Football" studio co-anchor and former ESPN "SportsCenter" legend, is featured in Sports Illustrated this week to, again, get a snicker out of everyone when he re-errects the legend of Merkel's Boner.

For those who need to hear the story again (a link here to the Wikipedia version):

It's the bottom of the ninth. The Giants need a victory over the Chicago Cubs at the Polo Grounds. Scored tied 1-1. Two outs. Merkle, a Giants' 19-year-old rookie, hits a long single to right field, sending his teammate, Moose McCormick, to third. Next, Al Bridwell singles up the middle, giving the Giants the apparent walk-off victory (the tern wasn't used then, but it could have been). Fans storm the field in celebration. And Merkle, who ran toward second on the hit, suddenly takes a right turn and joins the exodus.
Sorry, but that violated Rule 59: A run could not count if another runner was forced as the third out of the inning. Merkel was forced out at second by Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers, who noticed the gaffe, and the game was declared a tie.
The Cubs later won the make-up game, 4-2, won the National League, and then won the World Series -- the last one in franchise history. Merkel ended up playing for the Cubs, as well as the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees, and played in six World Series -- all of them on the losing side.
And the Cubs, for whatever reason, benefitted from a goat that wasn't related to the Billy Goat Tavern.

Writes Olbermann in SI:

A month into this thing already, and No. 1 USC has played but twice.
No wonder they're (practically) untouched in the rankings. This is all starting to sound like the Ohio State theory: Play less, win out, let everyone else knock each other around.
But you can only do that for so long.
The TV gods will mess with the Trojans' this week by treating them like a desperate Big East wannabe. Make 'em play Thursday. On ESPN. That'll teach 'em.

Hitch up the covered wagon today. There may be no midweek planes going to Corvallis, Ore., without a layover at Mt. Shasta.

(Some day, we'll get used to watching college football on Thursdays ... Thanksgiving Day, OK. A Christmas Day every six years, fine. But why is this such a regular thing? Because here, it gives Pete Carroll another free Friday to recruit?)

What games you'll be able to watch this week -- and weekend -- with a regular TV set (and a slightly more expensive distribution network):

THE LOCALS:

Thursday, 6 p.m., ESPN: USC at Oregon State (with Chris Fowler, Craig James, Jesse Palmer and Erin Andrews) There are only so many post-game hangouts that Andrews can find in Corvallis, and half of them end with "Watering Hole." Start camping out now with your cellphones cocked. There can't be any flights out of there Thursday night.

Saturday, 12:30 p.m., KABC/Channel 7: Fresno State at UCLA (with Terry Gannon and David Norrie) The former UCLA quarterback, Norrie, is already listed No. 3 on Neuheisel's depth chart for this contest.

THURSDAY:

==5 p.m., CBS College Sports: SMU at Tulane (with Carter Blackburn and Aaron Taylor)
==5 p.m., ESPNU: Mississippi Valley State at Alabama State (with Charlie Neal and Jay Walker)

FRIDAY:

==5 p.m., ESPN2: Connecticut at Louisville (with Bob Wischusen, Brock Huard and Rob Stone)

SATURDAY:

==7 to 9 a.m., ESPN "College GameDay" from Athens, Ga., site of the Alabama-Georgia contest (later on ESPN, not CBS). It means Kirk Herbstreit has to leave afterward and take the Disney jet north to State College, Pa.

==9 a.m., ESPN: Michigan State at Indiana (with Pam Ward and Ray Bentley)
==9 a.m., ESPN2: North Carolina at Miami (with Dave Pasch and Andre Ware)
==9 a.m., ESPN Classic: Northwestern at Iowa (with Dave Lamont and Shaun King)
==9 a.m., ESPNU: Virginia at Duke (with Dave Armstrong and Larry Coker)
==9 a.m., Big Ten Network: Minnesota at Ohio State (with Thom Brennaman, Charles Davis, Glen Mason and Charissa Thompson)
==9:30 a.m., Versus: Army at Texas A&M (with Ron Thulin, Kelly Stouffer and Lewis Johnson)

==12:30 p.m., KCBS Channel 2: Tennessee at Auburn (with Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson) So if CBS is supposed to be the network of the SEC, how is it that ESPN is getting the best matchups each week so far?
==12:30 p.m., KNBC Channel 4: Purdue at Notre Dame (with Tom Hammond and Pat Haden, plus Alex Flanagan assisting Charlie Weis to the sidelines)
==12:30 p.m., ESPN: Wisconsin at Michigan (with Brad Nessler, Bob Griese, Paul Maguire and Stacey Dales) So if the Big Ten Network is supposed to be the network of the Big Ten, how is it that ESPN is getting the best matchups each week so far?
==12:30 p.m., ESPN PPV: Colorado at Florida State (with Joe Tessitore, Rod Gilmore and Todd Harris)
==12:30 p.m., ESPN PPV: Arkansas at Texas (with Ron Franklin, Ed Cunningham and Jack Arute)
==12:30 p.m., CBS College Sports: Houston at East Carolina (with Tom Hart and Trev Alberts)
==12:30 p.m., Versus: Florida A&M vs. Tennessee State in Atlanta
==12:45 p.m., ESPNU: Navy at Wake Forest (with Doug Bell and Charles Arbuckle)

==2 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket: Morehouse vs. Prairie View A&M from the Coliseum (Angel City Classic) (with Michael Eaves and Petros Papadakis). Repeats at 11 p.m.

==4 p.m., FSN West: Texas Christian at Oklahoma (with Joel Meyers, Dave Lapham, Gary Reasons and Jim Knox)
==4 p.m., ESPN2: Mississippi State at LSU (with Mark Jones and Bob Davie)
==4:30 p.m., ESPNU: South Florida at N.C. State (with Clay Matvick, David Diaz-Infante and Melissa Knowles)
==4:45 p.m., ESPN: Alabama at Georgia (with Mike Patrick, Todd Blackledge and Holly Rowe)
==5 p.m., KABC Channel 7: Illinois at Penn State (with Brent Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit and Lisa Salters) See comment above attached to Wisconsin-Michigan game.
==5 p.m. ESPN PPV: Virginia Tech at Nebraska (with Sean McDonough, Chris Spielman and Erin Andrews)
==5 p.m., CBS College Sports: Central Florida at UTEP (with Carter Blackburn, Aaron Taylor and Rocket Ismail)

==7 p.m., MTN: Nevada at UNLV (with James Bates and Todd Christensen)
==7:30 p.m., FSN West: Stanford at Washington (with Kevin Calabro, Mack Strong and Nicole Zaloumis)

LOOKING AHEAD:

TUESDAY, SEPT. 30:
==5 p.m., ESPN2: Florida Atlantic at Middle Tennessee (with Todd Harris and Ray Bentley)
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 1:
==5 p.m., ESPN: Louisiana Tech at Boise State (with Joe Tessitore and Rod Gilmore)

NBC proclaims this AM:

Dallas' 27-16 victory over Green Bay on "Sunday Night Football," drew 22.2 million viewers and stands as the second most watched Sunday Night game in NBC's two-plus year history of the program, trailing only the much-hyped "Manning Bowl" on the first Sunday of the 2006 season (22.6 million), according to data provided by Nielsen Media Research.

Sunday night's game ended up with a 13.3 rating and 21 share. When the metered markets came in with overnights, it was a 14.4/22 number. The game did a 38.6/56 in Dallas and a 41.8/57 in Milwaukee.

"Sunday Night Football" was the highest-rated show Sunday -- defeating the Primetime Emmy Awards broadcast on ABC by 80 percent in viewers (22.2 million to 12.3 million) and 62 percent among households (13.3/21 vs. 8.2/13). We're not sure how many New Yorkers helped boost ESPN's coverage at the same time of the Yankees' final home game, but assume it's less than 12.3 million.

The most-watched games in "SNF" history:
1. Indianapolis-N.Y. Giants (09.07.06): 22.6 mil.
2. Dallas-Green Bay (09.21.08): 22.2 mil.
3. Indianapolis-New England (11.05.06): 21.9 mil.
4. Philadelphia-New England (11.25.07): 21.8 mil.
5. New Orleans-Dallas (12.10.06): 19.9 mil.

Now, for the L.A. angle:

The Emmys did a 13.7 rating and 23 share in Los Angeles for KABC Channel 7 -- better than the 12.7/23 for the Cowboys-Packers on KNBC Channel 4.
Meaning, in these parts, an uneven, almost embarassing Josh Groban theme-show song montage drew more eyeballs and had an deeper intrisic meaning that a Tony Romo touchdown drive. Somehow, that makes complete sense.

ALSO:
== ESPN's Monday Night Football - the San Diego Chargers' 48-29 victory over the visiting New York Jets - did an 8.9 rating, representing an average of 8,642,000 homes (11,881,000 P2+). For the third straight Monday, ESPN won the night in the key male demos among all networks, broadcast or cable, and the game drove significant traffic to ESPN.com's NFL content.

No worries concerns doubts about whether the Chargers or Raiders will be wedged into your L.A. TV sets this weekend.
The schedule-maker has made them play each other -- the first of two, of couse, in the AFC West draw. The second meeting is on Thursday, Dec. 4, in San Diego, on the NFL Network, meaning, for many of y'all, this is the only time you'll see Oakland face San Diego, and the fact it's in Oakland could add a little more, er, venim, especially with Lane Kiffin's job still supposedly hanging in the balance.
And Al Davis hanging upside down in his cave.

The rest of the NFL's upcoming weekend serving:

Sunday:

==10 a.m., KTTV Channel 11: Green Bay at Tampa Bay (with Kenny Albert, Darryl Johnston and Tony Siragusa). Fox happily skips over Atlanta at Carolina, San Francisco at New Orleans, Arizona at N.Y. Jets and Minnesota at Tennessee. CBS has these games locked into this window: Cleveland at Cincinnati, Denver at Kansas City and Houston at Jacksonville.

==1 p.m., KCBS Channel 2: San Diego at Oakland (with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms). CBS passes on Buffalo at St. Louis.

==1:15 p.m., KTTV Channel 11: Washington at Dallas (with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman) It's the only Fox game in this window, and NBC can't have it.

==5:15 p.m., KNBC Channel 4: Philadelphia at Chicago (with Al Michaels, John Madden and Andrea Kremer)

Monday:

==5:30 p.m., ESPN: Baltimore at Pittsburgh (with Mike Tirico, Tony Kornheiser and Ron Jaworski)

Bye week: Detroit, Indianapolis, Miami, New England, N.Y Giants, Seattle, and again, Tom Brady.

Joe McDonnell, a man (again) without a show, had this quip to give after it came out today that KLAC-AM (570) was not renewing his contract, thus ending his "Experience" (with Joe Grande and Tim Cates), replacing it next week with Tony Bruno (links here to the posts below at 3:13 p.m. and 5:50 p.m.):

"I really enjoyed my three years at Clear Channel, but they had a chance to save some money, so who can blame them for that?" said the San Fernando Valley native. "I wished it could have worked out that we stayed on the air, but Clear Channel is now in my rear view. I'm looking forward to my next opportunity and challenge. I truly love the business, and like I tell the students I speak to: 'If you're not crazy going into radio, you will be by the time you're done.'
"I've got a ways to go -- I'm only half crazy."

Now, to the scoreboard (kept on Joe's site) for the list of stations that the man we called the best sports-talk show host in L.A. six times and the sports talk show host of the decade for the 1990s has worked for:

=KGIL (1975-82)
=KFI ('88-'91)
=XTRA 690 (1991)
=KMPC ('91-'94)
=KMAX-FM ('95-'96)
=KWNK ('96)
=KABC ('97)
=XTRA 1150 ('97-'98)
=KABC ('98-99)
=KFWB ('99-'00)
=KABC ('99-'00)
=KSPN ('00-05)
=KTLK ('06-'08)
=KLAC ('06-'08)

==SportsbyBrooks has this to add (linked here)

Bruce Willis didn't make much of that title when the then-"Moonlighting" TV star tried to cut an album more than 20 years ago (linked here) in his pre-"Die Hard" days.

Tony Bruno, a die-hard radio guy on just about every syndicated network one could listen to over the last few decades, should not want that kind of luck with him as he makes a re-entry into the moonlit L.A. galaxy with a new sports-talk show on KLAC-AM (570) starting Monday, Sept. 29.

At the end of a revealing interview this summer with Deadpin.com (linked here), Bruno, who had been making some pretty good seven-figure salaries, said he expected to bounce back after he found himself jobless when his contract with The Sporting News Radio ran out. It only took until September before he was able, with the help of The Content Factor, work out a co-op deal with the management at KLAC to give him the 7-to-10 p.m. weeknight spot for the opportunity to turn it into a syndicated venture.

We're guessing it'll pay more than $200,000 a year.

"Fortunately, my patience paid off," Bruno said Monday afternoon. "This business has been tough. I finally got an opportunity through The Content Factory, after filling in for Dan Patrick (for a couple of days in the summer) to get some exposure again and the response was good."

When Bruno left the air in January as a morning-drive sports-talk host, Patrick, upon leaving ESPN, was able to capture many of those stations as he started to syndicate himself through Premiere Radio as an opening act for Jim Rome's show.

Bruno, realizing he didn't have much syndicated power to flex in the mornings any more with the current landscape, turned to a shift that's a little out of the boundary of what he's been used to, but that's part of the challenge.

"I'm not going to try to re-invent myself, but the fact is, this is an open area that others in the past have found success in with a high level and a good audience," said Bruno. "We'll do live remotes, maybe more stuff from Vegas when something's happening. I don't want to be the guy who screams, 'It's a final!' and then go do an interview with another drone selling a book. People don't normally listen to this time slot, but I want to give them a reason. I know I already have JT The Brick opposite of this (doing a syndicated show for Fox Radio out of Sherman Oaks), but I think I already have a heads up on the competition."

Long-time L.A. radio sports icon Joe McDonnell is again without a broadcast home, as KLAC-AM (570) program director Don Martin confirmed this afternoon that a new show hosted by Tony Bruno will take the 7-to-10 p.m. weeknight spot beginning Monday, Sept. 29.

McDonnell (a link to his website here), who has had a 20-year run in the L.A. market as a sports-talk host, had been at KLAC since January, 2006, also working for sister station KTLK-AM (1150). His weeknight spot this week will be replaced with replays of the Petros Papadakis and Matt "Money" Smith show (which airs from 4-to-7 p.m.)

Martin explained that The Content Factory, which launched Dan Patrick's syndicated radio career after he left ESPN (and is now on KLAC from 6 to 9 a.m.), approached him about co-owning a Bruno show called "Into the Night" that eminated from the station's Burbank studios but will eventually be available to other stations, such as how the Tom Leykis show operates with out of the L.A. studios of 97.1-FM.

Bruno (his website linked here), who has been living in Venice for the last eight years, was last heard in the L.A. market nearly two years ago as the morning drive host at the former 1540-AM The Ticket, which was then owned by The Sporting News radio network. His contract with that network ended in April this year.

Martin said the timing of Bruno's availability, the fact that it is formatted for a night-time show, and McDonnell's contract coming up for renewal all converged for this decision.
"We've come to the end and it's time to move forward," said Martin.

Martin said that McDonnell broadcast partner Joe Grande will continue hosting a weekend sports-talk show and Tim Cates will produce Bruno's show and contribute to it as well.

Over the last few months, Bruno had been approached by KSPN-AM (710) as a possible afternoon drive host, but the station eventually decided not to do it. Bruno also had a deal apparently set with the Angels' flagship station, KLAA-AM (830), but those talks broke down in April.

A Q-and-A with Bruno coming shortly ...

That's what Jack Lord (Steve McGarrett) tells the jailbird as Al Michaels (David Bronstein) sits down in the cell and tries to get him off the hook in a murder case.
Thanks to AwfulAnnouncing.com (linked here) to finding our item on Michaels' "Hawaii Five-O" appearance in 1970, and then tracking down the 2 minute, 39-second video clip.
You kind of wish John Madden was there afterward to critique it on the Telestrator.

So apparently them bad-a** Jonas Brothers were over at a local Big 5 Sporting Good store stocking up on baseball stuff because they had rented out Dodger Stadium the other night (at more than $30,000) so they could have a pick-up baseball game.

Kids have too much loose pocket change these days?

E! News had the "exclusive" news (linked here) late last week and shared with the nation that the boy band was celebrating the youngest (Nick) brother's 16th birthday from 10 p.m. to about 12:30 a.m. on Thursday night.

When syndicated radio show host Dan Patrick reviewed the news of the game on today's show (6-to-9 a.m., KLAC-AM 570), he added: "Could you check -- did Darren Dreifort or Chan Ho Park pick up the win?"

The Tom Rinaldi story that appeared today on "Outside The Lines":

By CHRIS TALBOTT
Associated Press Writer

Phil Dalhausser has a tale of the tape that ends with him winning an Olympic gold medal.

The beach volleyball player strained an abdominal muscle in the crucial run-up to the Beijing Games when he couldn't afford a bad match, let alone to sit one out. He might have missed three weeks, but with the help of sports chiropractor Ernie Ferrel and Kinesio tex tape -- a product few outside the world of physical therapy knew about -- he helped the United States win in men's beach volleyball.

"I love the stuff, to be honest with you," Dalhausser said.

The Olympics were Kinesio tape's coming out party. Now it is the latest trainer's tool to become an American fitness fad, a Breathe Right strip for the new century.

The tape actually has been widely available for years. But hidden away under clothing for nearly three decades, it had never gotten quite the exposure it received when American beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh -- also part of gold-winning duo -- used it on her shoulder in China.

The life of Kinesio Taping director John Jarvis has been a hectic run of meetings, interviews and consultations ever since.

"With her wearing almost nothing, it definitely drew attention to the black (tape)," Jarvis said. "They were calling it everything from the spider web to the tarantula, you name it."

The company's Web site ( linked here)averaged 1,000 to 2,000 hits a day before the Olympics. It peaked at 400,000 hits, 4,000 e-mails and 1,200 phone calls a day after NBC commentators named the product on air.

Two members of the Oakland Raiders' Raiderettes squad -- Tiphanie and Irecel -- will make an apparance at the ESPN Zone in Anaheim this weekend -- Saturday, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 5 to 6:30 p.m. -- to sell Raiderette calendars, sign photos and pose for snapshots, according to our sources.

Again, that's Tiphanie (on the left) (bio link here), otherwise known as Tiph. Of course. Anyone with a PhD could figure that out.

And Irecel (on the right) (bio link here). I could not even begin to try to pronounce that without sounding like I was looking for a battery to put in my smoke alarm.

Other Raiderettes who didn't make the trip:

Angel, Cherie, Serrita, Noni, Cole, Meena, Shanika, Itza, Mercedes, Jovann or Jonni.

Seriously. And no, Seriously is not the name of another Raiderette. Not yet anyway.

A week's worth of media notes covering:

==Another sincere reminder about Sunday's ESPN "Outside The Lines" piece on the 30th anniversary of the death of Lyman Bostock, (linked here) and please read this story (linked here) by ESPN's Jeff Pearlman, which masterfully covers everything about the former Angel and San Fernando Valley State outfielder's life you'd ever want to know.

==The NFL Week 3 TV schedule (linked here), with a look back at the Dallas Cowboys' TV success (linked here).

(And by the way, the NFL says that the CBS doubleheader last week that featured -- to most of the country -- New England vs. the New York Jets was viewed by 25.4 million, making it the most-watched NFL game in September on a Sunday since 1991. In L.A., we saw San Diego-Denver in that window.)
And the San Diego Union Tribune has Tony Kornheiser's reaction to the Chargers' latest loss (linked here).

==The college football TV lineup (linked here)

==The WNBA playoffs coverage (linked here)

==The MLB pennant races and ESPN's farewell to Yankee Stadium (linked here)

==How to watch the Ryder Cup (linked here)

==Miscellanous stuff about Al Michaels' latest royalty check for doing a 1970 episode of "Hawaii Five-O" (linked here), Chris Mortensen's credit report (linked here), Tony Kornheiser's mea culpa (linked here), Bob Griese's flag waving (linked here) FSN West's high-def issues with local teams (linked here), the latest "E:60" stories (linked here), Bob Ley meets John McCain (linked here) Michael Phelps fudging in his "SNL" Speedo (linked here), and a new sports-comedy show planned for Versus (linked here).

==Plus more on Linda Cohn's book (linked here) and (linked here).

As for today's media column focused on the books released recently by ESPN's Linda Cohn and TV producer/director/writer/innovator Tony Verna (linked here), we have more Cliff Notes to offer up:

==Where to find Cohn's book: "Cohn-Head: A No-Holds-Barred Account of Breaking Into the Boys' Club" ($24.95, Lyons Press, 246 pages with photos) (linked here).

==The dedication to Cohn's book should have been the first tip that this wasn't just another sports-person autobiography: "This book is dedicated to all of us who have found that the road to success is neither easy nor clear ... and usually leads to somewhere other than where we expected it to go."
In a memoir that includes revelations of some nasty locker-room encounters, explaining the thought process of trying to help a colleague at ESPN who'd been unfairly accused of sexual harassment and admitting she once considered posing for Playboy, Cohn pretty much lays out a life that women today trying to get into the business can use as a wake-up call to see if this is really for them.
"It's definitely not a sports book, per se," Cohn admits, going back into her thick New York accent best compared it to Lois Griffin from "Family Guy," a description that L.A. morning radio wiseacre Adam Carolla came up with when interviewing her this week.
The truth is, Cohn isn't the first ESPN personality to write a book, and probably won't be the last. But if any of them were interested in a template for how to do one that will make a difference and not just stroke their own egos, here it is.
Maybe the best way to put it is how Bob Costas did in his endorsment blurb: "After reading her book I now know things about Linda Cohn I couldn't even have suspected from roughly 1,000 hourse of SportsCenters."

The current flashy 75th anniversary collector's edition of Esquire -- try to find the one on the newstands with the flashing white box that proclaims "The 21st Century Begins Now," a digital-chip generated piece of art that is supposedly the "world's first e-ink cover" -- includes, starting on page 272, a story called "A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century," by Chuck Klosterman.
Basically, it's predicting the next 75 years. So that you dont have to.
Starting with Nov. 4, 2008, when John McCain wins the presidental election with 277 electoral votes, and including Barak Obama returning to defeat incumbent McCain "by a landslide" in 2012 (in an election that also includes a "blogucrat" gaining three percent of the vote by running a campaign entirely on the Internet), the election of a black pope, the moon populating reaching 1 million by 2065, and Jamie Lynn Spears becoming the prime minister of the West Coast in a splintered U.S. map, these predictions facts are also revealed:

=Nov. 7, 2028: Tom Brady (R-Michigan) defeats Will Smith (D-California) in the race for the Oval Office.

=April 5, 2033: In a moment reminiscent of Texas Western's 1966 victory over Kentucky, the all-black Kentucky Wildcats are upset in the NCAA basketball championship by the University of Portland, a school whose squad is composed entirely of Asians.

=April 8, 2037: Citing flawed financial management and waning public interest, Major League Baseball folds. The top 12 percent of U.S. players join clubs in the Dominican Republic.

=June 22, 2046: At the World Games in Helsinki, U.S. sprinter Zeb Lovelace runs the 100 meters in an astrounding 8.99 seconds. His record is later disqualified when testing proves that Lovelace had been injecting himself with self-duplicating DNA taken from the bone marrow of cheetahs.
(Our reaction: It proves again that cheetahs never prosper).

=Feb. 20, 2067: Super Bowl C: Dallas defeats Denver 31-17. The NFL, for whatever reason, is pretty much the same as it always was.

Oh, as for that Internet president guy. His name: Digger True. He ended up as the de facto Republican candidate in 2019 and "became the first president of Ameica's postliterate era" in 2020.
Read it now, before you can't later.

When he's not rocking a Larry Bird tank-top courtside at a Celtics-Lakers NBA finals game, dissing the Lakers' huddle talk, former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling has time to crank out more stuff about ex-teammmate Manny Ramirez.
As if anyone really, really, really cares.
In an interview Wednesday on Boston radio station WEEI-AM, Schilling said Ramirez's "level of disrespect to teammates and people was unfathomable. ...The guy got to dress in a locker away from the team for seven years. And then (when) he's on this crusade to get out of here, all of a sudden he's in the locker room every day, voicing his displeasure without even having to play the game that night."
Waaaa, waaa, waaa...
So far, no follow up on it at his blogspot (linked here).
Read more about it (at this link).
We first caught this report on ESPN "SportsCenter" last night, which included a new "Life Of Riley" piece from Rick Reilly that offered suggestions to the Dodgers about what to do with Manny and his contract up next season -- basically, give him whatever he wants, including $80 mil over the next four years.
After all, since he arrived in August, he's "gone deep more than Jacques Cousteau." And "he's made more friends in a week than Jeff Kent has made in a year." And "somehow he got Dodger fans to stay past the seventh inning."
Hardy har (cough) har.
Aw, go ahead and watch it for yourself:

You may also want to get to the bottom of whether Reilly would like to "tongue bathe the Queen Mother." (go to this link).

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Basketball fans lined up at the Connecticut state Capitol to catch a glimpse of several Boston Celtics players and the team's 2008 NBA championship trophy.

Celtics star and former University of Connecticut standout Ray Allen thanked the fans on Thursday and credited them with inspiring the team to win its first title since 1986.

Celtics guards Tony Allen and Rajon Rondo, Celtics Team President Rich Gotham and Celtics veteran JoJo White were also on hand to accompany the gleaming brass trophy. They were joined by two Celtics Dancers and "Lucky," the team's mascot.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell's office invited the team to visit Connecticut after it defeated the Lakers in six games to win its 17th NBA title. Many of the fans wore Celtics jerseys and green ties.

Friday, the Celtics visit the White House and meet with President Bush.

The Big Lead (linked here) gives props to ESPN's Chris Mortensen for his honesty during an online chat on ESPN (linked here) after someone named "Ken from Tarzana" hit him with this question:

"What are your thoughts on ESPN not giving credit to reporters who break stories? Instead giving credit to ESPN reporters who confirm stories. I'll give you mucho credit if you actually answer this question."

Said Mort:
"Wow, I was looking for that credit. Look, our business has changed dramatically with the immediacy of everything. Sometimes, we'll get something out over the airwaves first before we ever get it posted on the website. Plus, we don't have automatic email lists that goes out to different blog sites but there are a lot of good reporters out there doing excellent work. The best thing any reporter can do though is to stick (to) the standards - it is better to get beat on a story than to compromise the standard. We have worked hard at giving credit when credit is due."

Replies Big Lead:
"Five years ago, can you imagine anyone even dreaming up this question? Five years ago, the sports blogs were few, Yahoo and Fox weren't online powerhouses, and it's not like the media care about such trivial matters."

And one reply to the Big Lead story that makes the most sense:
"The issue is that ESPN will say, "Chris Mortensen is reporting...," rather than, "Fox Sports' Jay Glazer reports..." I think there's a huge difference and one makes ESPN look like they're the only ones on top of things when they're not. In other news, the general public doesn't care about this stuff."

We spent a little time this week trying to get inside the head of ESPN anchor Linda Cohn while she was being wisked around town doing interviews for her new autobiography. Let's put it this way: The book is a very insightful look into a woman's view of a male-dominated TV sports world, but it goes into some directions you'd never expect. Brutally honest. Here's a review, in fact, that USA Today did on it back in July when it got an advanced copy (linked here). The book wasn't released until last week.

One of Cohn's tour stops (during a vacation from ESPN) was in New York that included a "date" -- maybe more of a playdate -- with Deadspin.com editor A.J. Daulerio. She can laugh about it. Daulerio can too, for different reasons.

The before-the-date link Daulerio filed on Sept. 10: (linked here)

A report on how the date went on Sept. 11 (linked here) with an editor's warning: Daulerio didn't end the night pretty.

How did we fare from our encounter? We forgot to bring flowers, for one thing. Having known Linda for at least 10 years -- going back to a story we did on what it was like for a working mom to work in the sports TV business for a Mother's Day piece long, long ago -- she seemed OK with that. We met up at a Beverly Hills hotel and, I can honestly say, nothing bad happened to either of us.

There's only a passing reference to it on his official NFL trading card -- the time when Al Michaels was broadcasting games for the Hawaiian Islanders, the Triple-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres, as well as football and basketball games for the University of Hawaii in the late '60s and early '70s.
Yet, it was an important time in his life 40 years ago, named Hawaii's "Sportscaster of the Year" at one point, which may have launched him to bigger and better things in the sports TV business.

As he was recalling the other day on Colin Cowherd's ESPN radio show, Michaels actually took advantage of his Hawaii days to take a tiny detour into the TV drama world when he made a cameo as "attorney David Bronstein" in an episode of "Hawaii Five-0" (it's on IMDB.com, linked here), the episode entitled "Run, Johnny, Run" that also included a young Christopher Walken.
We had to probe deeper into this.
"I got the gig because the Hawaii Five-0 folks were filling some cameo roles with people who were on television in Hawaii at that time, and I think I got paid something like a hundred bucks," Michaels told us in an email. "I told Colin that I recently got a residual check for 87 cents.
"Yes, it was during the period I was broadcasting Islander games. And every couple of months someone will stop me and say, 'Hey, was that you on 'Hawaii Five-0'?
"I had about seven lines that got edited down to two when the show aired. Never got an Emmy nomination, though."
Nor for his work in "Who's The Boss," "Life Goes On," "Coach," "Spin City," "Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place," or the HBO series "Arli$$" (where he played the cousin of title character Arliss Michaels, played by Robert Wuhl)).
No Oscars, either, for his voice-over work in "Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco" (in the role of a dog named Sparky Michaels) nor for his appearances as himself in the acclaimed "BASEketball" or the lesser known "Jerry Maguire" and "Miracle." One can keep dreaming.

Probably going to need a robust trip to BevMo, stocking up for the weekend of women's hoop as the WNBA kicks off its playoff schedule Thursday with ...
Wait, it's here somewhere...
ESPN2 has (as many as) six first-round games, starting with Sacramento-San Antonio on Thursday (that's the Russian expatriot Becky Hammon and her San Antonio Non-Spurs). There's also two games on Sunday, including the Sparks' second game at Seattle. Before that, it's Indiana-Detroit at noon.
The best-of-three series finishes with four potential Game 3 matchups Monday and Tuesday.
How it plays out first for the Sparks:

Friday, 7:30 p.m.: Home vs. Seattle, Game 1, NBATV (with Larry Burnett and Tracy Warren); replayed on FSN Prime Ticket at 11 p.m.
Sunday, 2 p.m.: At Seattle, Game 2, ESPN2 (with Pam Ward, Carolyn Peck and Heather Cox)
Tuesday, 6 p.m.: At Seattle, Game 3, ESPN2 (if necessary) (with Ward, Peck and Cox).

The other games on ESPN2:

Thursday, 6 p.m.: San Antonio-Sacramento Game 1 (with Terry Gannon, Doris Burke and Heather Cox)
Sunday, noon: Indiana-Detroit Game 2 (with Gannon, Burke and Holly Rowe)
Monday, 4 p.m.: New York at Connecticut Game 3 (with Dave Pasch, Nancy Lieberman and Rebecca Lobo) or Sacramento at San Antonio Game 3 (with Pasch, Lieberman and Rowe)
Tuesday, 4 p.m.: Indiana at Detroit Game 3 (with Gannon, Burke and Rowe)

A link to our Spanish language Daily News sports blogger Alonso Tacanga, a Cal State Northridge student and writer for The Daily Sundail, who has an opinion about the pot of menudo that ESPN's Tony Kornheiser got himself into (and out of) during the last "Monday Night Football" telecast (linked here).
From my best translation, Tacanga says that it's true there's nothing offensive, but it was a little stupid to say.

For more of the English version:
==Tuesday's New York Times (linked here)

Is ESPN feeling lucky?

Its coverage of the foursome and four-ball matches from the Ryder Cup at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky, which begins Friday at 5 a.m. (and goes to 3 p.m. live, then replays it on ESPN Classic from 3 to 10 p.m.), is more residual effect from the deal Disney made with G.E. when the Peacock came to get Al Michaels out of his ABC/ESPN contract to use him on its "Sunday Night Football" telecasts starting in 2006.

In addition to obtaining the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (one of Walt Disney's first cartoon creations, which somehow was in possession of the NBC ownership group), ESPN/ABC received the rights to this telecast window (with NBC producing it), as well as Thursday's opening ceremony coverage (1 to 3 p.m.).

The great fear for NBC is that the U.S. pulls another early collapse and makes the weekend competition meaningless. "They've smoked the U.S. on Fridays, and it's almost over," NBC's Johnny Miller said of the way the European teams have performed in winning three of the last four events.

Mike Tirico hosts the ESPN coverage with Andy North, Judy Rankin, Bill Kratzert, Scott Van Pelt, Tom Rinaldi and Rick Reilly chiming in. Jason Sobel will also be blogging live on ESPN.com.

It's too bad the two captains -- Paul Azinger and Nick Faldo (pictured above) -- aren't doing the matches for their respective broadcast networks (ABC and CBS).

On the weekend (foursome and four-ball from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and singles matches from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday), NBC has Miller trying to avoid using the "c" word (choke) with Dan Hicks, Roger Maltbie, Mark Rolfing, Dottie Pepper, Gary Koch and Bob Murphy, plus Jimmy Roberts' "essays."

Says producer Tommy Roy on how the network handles match play: "(It is) one of our specialties, and cover match play 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."

ESPN Classic replays the second (4 to 9 p.m. Saturday) and third rounds (2 to 7 p.m. Monday), while ESPNEWS has the closing ceremony (3 to 4 p.m. Sunday). The Golf Channel has live reports daily (starting today) from 3 to 5 p.m.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- The Arkansas Travelers lost a dozen more games than they won this year. And Monday night, they celebrated a Texas League championship.

In an extreme example of what can happen under a split-season format, the Travelers won the title with an 11-3 victory at Frisco on Monday. Arkansas went 36-34 to win the first half championship in the North Division, then 26-44 in the second half. The Travelers were 6-2 in the playoffs, sweeping Northwest Arkansas and outlasting Frisco in best-of-five rounds.

Split-season baseball is set up to keep fans interested. If a team has a poor first half, it can still make the playoffs with a good second half.

Arkansas, a Double-A affiliate of the Angels, did the opposite. The Travelers outlasted Springfield in the first half, then slumped badly. Their 62-78 mark in the regular season was the worst by a Texas League champion in the modern era.

Arkansas started 0-7, then rallied back into contention.

"I think you've got to give Abe Flores, the Angels' farm director, a lot of credit," Travelers general manager Pete Laven said. "When we started 0-7, he went out and picked up some guys from independent baseball and some veteran guys that had been released by other organizations."

They're gonna call it "variable pricing," a technique that allows the Lakers to raise the price on tickets for seven home games this season, but if you buy a season ticket package, you've effectively sidestepped the increase.

With the plan announced today, tickets in various sections of Staples Center will have three different prices -- an individual game price; a discounted season seat price; and a premium price.

The seven premium games are:
Dec. 25 (Christmas Day) against Boston; Jan. 19 against Cleveland; Jan. 25 against San Antonio; Feb. 20 against New Orleans; Feb. 26 against Phoenix; March 15 against Dallas; and April 3 vs. Houston.

More info on our Laker blog (linked here), as tickets go on sale Oct. 4 at 10 a.m. The Lakers explain more about their policy at their website (linked here).

"This has been a growing trend in sports and entertainment ticket pricing in recent years and allows us to increase revenues to offset our increasing payroll costs," Tim Harris, senior vice president of business operations, said Tuesday. "At the same time, while determining the market value of ticket prices, we were sensitive to being able to protect our season seat holders by keeping their price increases to a minimum."

Harris said that season ticket price packages will go up five percent this year. He said there are about 3,700 accounts that hold reservations to 13,600 seats in the 18,000-plus seat arena.

After further review, KCBS-Channel 2 will dump the 1-1 Raiders onto the L.A. market on Sunday morning, in their road game against 2-0 Buffalo, after initial indications were that we'd get Cincinnati at N.Y. Giants in the 10 a.m. window.
Sad, or glad? Lane Kiffin would rather you not watch anyway.
The info we have now:

Sunday:

=10 a.m., Channel 2: Oakland at Buffalo (with Don Criqui and Dan Fouts) instead of the other CBS offerings: Cincinnati at N.Y. Giants (with Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf),, Kansas City at Atlanta, Miami at New England and Houston at Tennessee. Games airing in this window on Fox: Tampa Bay at Chicago, Carolina at Minnesota and Arizona at Washington.

=1 p.m., Channel 11: New Orleans at Denver (with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman), using the Manhattan Beach AVP Open as the lead-in at 11:30 a.m., with the women's final (which they hope involves Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor). Other Fox games in this window that we are thankfully not seeing: Detroit at San Francisco and St. Louis at Seattle.

=1:15 p.m., Channel 2: Pittsburgh at Philadephia (with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms) as opposed to the other CBS games: Cleveland at Baltimore and Jacksonville at Indianapolis).

=5:15 p.m., Channel 4: Dallas at Green Bay (with Al Michaels and John Madden, trying not to say the words "Brett Favre" more than 100 times on the broadcast)

Monday:

=5:30 p.m., ESPN: N.Y. Jets at San Diego (with Mike "Fresh off the Ryder Cup" Tirico, Tony "The Apologist" Kornheiser and Ron "The New John Madden" Jaworski).

Plotting for the event that the Dodgers' magic number comes ever so close to actually happening, and the magic number for the emplosion of Yankee Stadium, the TV schedule for them and the rest of the league for the foreseeable future:

Wednesday:

==4 p.m., Channel 9: Dodgers at Pittsburgh (with Charley Steiner and Steve Lyons)
==5 p.m., ESPN: Milwaukee at Chicago Cubs, with the Brewers trying to win the wild-card.
==7 p.m., FSN West: Angels at Oakland (with Steve Physioc and Rex Hudler, sending Rory Markas to radio with Terry Smith)

Thursday:

==9:30 a.m., FSN Prime Ticket: Dodgers at Pittsburgh (with Charley Steiner and Steve Lyons), finishing the 10-game, 11-day road trip. (replayed at 12:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.)
==12:30 p.m., FSN West: Angels at Oakland (with Steve Physioc and Rex Hudler) (replayed at 7 p.m.)

Friday:

==4 p.m., ESPN: TBA
==5 p.m., FSN West: Angels at Texas (with Steve Physioc and Rex Hudler)
==7:30 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket: San Francisco at Dodgers (with Vin Scully, finally).

Saturday:

==12:55 p.m., Channel 11/Fox: St. Louis at Chicago Cubs (with Josh Lewin, Tim McCarver and Ken Rosenthal)
==5 p.m., Channel 13: Angels at Texas (with Steve Physioc and Rex Hudler)
==7 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket: San Francisco at Dodgers (with Vin Scully).

Sunday:

==10 a.m., TBS: Boston at Toronto (with Chip Caray and Buck Martinez)
==Noon, Channel 13: Angels at Texas (with Steve Physioc and Rex Hudler)
==1 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket: San Francisco at Dodgers (with Vin Scully).
==5 p.m., ESPN: Baltimore at the New York Yankees (with Jon Miller, Joe Morgan and Peter Gammons). It's the last game at Yankee Stadium before they tear it down. Good riddance. And if you missed it, ESPN did a number on how the new Yankee Stadium is occupying a plot of land next to the current Yankee Stadium that kids used to play on, but now children from the "poorest Congressional district in the U.S." (ESPN's words) is having to look for recreation elsewhere (linked here).
In this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, Tom Verducci writes the House That Ruth Built obit with nine pages of tribute to a place, when you do the math, hosted 21 percent of all World Series games ever played.

There are a few things that really stand out from our kid-hood from watching sports. The tragic stuff, we mean.
Like, watching the 1973 Rose Bowl -- USC versus Ohio State, the Sam Cunningham game, 42-17 -- and having no interest in it after hearing Curt Gowdy tell us that Roberto Clemente had died in a plane crash the night before.
We had that same horrible feeling 30 years ago -- Sept. 23, 1978 -- when we heard that the Angels' Lyman Bostock (his Wikipedia entry linked here) had been killed.
Bostock was the son of a Negro League baseball star, who grew up in L.A., went to Manual Arts High and eventually played at Cal State Northridge (then known as San Fernando Valley State). In two years, he led the Matadors in hitting (.344 as a freshman, .296 as a sophomore) and pushed the team to a second-place finish in the '72 Division II College World Series.

On Saturday afternoon, Sept., 23, 1980, toward the end of his fourth season in the big leagues and first with the Angels, he went 2-for-4 against the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park. He got a hit in his last at-bat.
Hours later, dead?

ESPN's "Outside The Lines" for Sunday (6 a.m. ESPN/9 a.m. ESPNEWS) revisits that whole thing, trying to tie up some loose ends. But maybe they can't.
As the story goes, Bostock and his uncle, Thomas Turner, were giving a ride to Thomas' Goddaughter, Barbara Smith, in Gary, Ind., when Smith's estranged husband Leonard Smith fired a shotgun at the car. Bostock was hit in the temple and later died in a local hospital. He was 27.

Leonard Smith was tried for murder and was eventually found not guilty -- reason of insanity. After six months in a state mental hospital, he was declared sane and granted his freedom. Smith has never spoken publically about what happened.

Reporter Tom Rinaldi tracked him down, but from the looks of things from ESPN's department of information, we're not sure if Smith actually talks one-on-one with Rinaldi in the story. ESPN spokesman Dan Quinn said the producer has told him that while Rinaldi was able to track Smith down and ask some questions, the exhange doesn't yield any substansive answers to at least provides a look at the person. It needs to be viewed rather than explained in print.

Here's a screen grab from their meeting:

These quotes were excerpted:

=Jack Crawford, who prosecuted Leonard Smith: "This should have been an open and shut case. That's what it should've been, and that's how we, as prosecutors, looked at it. Leonard Smith got away with murder. He did it legally, through the system as it existed, but that's the bottom line."

=Nick Thiros, defense attorney for Smith: "I think if you were to ask him today, 'Do you have any regrets about what occurred?' I don't know that he would say that he was sorry for what happened. I don't know."

Bostock is buried in the Inglewood Cemetery (linked here). A memorial scholarship fund in his name still exists at CSUN, where he was the first athlete (in 1981) put into the school's Hall of Fame (linked here). Here's a link to a tribute page to Bostock (linked here).

By The Associated Press

Jerry Jones likes to brag about the Dallas Cowboys being the top drawing card in the entire entertainment world. His premise: The Cowboys draw the highest ratings among NFL teams and the NFL is the highest-rated programming on television.

Games like Monday night sure help his claim.

Dallas' 41-37 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles was filled with drama. The lead changed seven times, the momentum swaying on good plays and goofy ones, with big-name players from both teams at both ends of the spectrum.

Mix in the backdrop of a rivalry and division supremacy, a few injuries, some questionable officiating calls, several big milestones and the historic nugget of this being the final Monday night game at Texas Stadium, and it's no wonder the Cowboys were ratings gold yet again -- a whopping 12.95 million homes and 18.6 million viewers, the largest audience ever for a program on cable television. It's the second time in three years Dallas has set that mark.

"What a way to have the last 'Monday Night Football' game at Texas Stadium," Jones said. "It had it all."

Jones' joy obviously is tinted by his team coming out on top. Thing is, Tony Romo and the Cowboys are getting awfully good at winning these kinds of games -- both those with the entire country watching and the wild-and-crazy variety.

Just last season in Buffalo, Romo threw five interceptions and lost a fumble, but rallied the Cowboys to victory. That Buffalo game, by the way, also was on a Monday night.

Romo is 11-3 in nationally televised games, the ones on Sunday night, Monday night, Saturday night, Thursday night, Thanksgiving and Christmas, when everyone in the NFL is among those gathered around the tube.

Alas, Romo, is 0-2 under the similar scenario but higher stakes of the playoffs. (At least Jones can take solace in both those games making for gripping television.)

==For what it's worth, Romo and the Cowboys are on prime time again this week, on Sunday night against Philadelphia.
==Also, for what it's worth, that MNF game was only the third highest-rated show in cable history, at 13.3. But that represents more viewers than it did back in 1987, when Chicago played Minnesota on ESPN, or in 1994, when Detroit played Miami in an ESPN contest. Hence, you can call it the most-viewed game.

A note from today's L.A. Times "Morning Briefing" (linked here):

Auto pilot

Asked how quarterback Bob Griese had performed in leading Tampa Bay over the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday, Buccaneers Coach Jon Gruden said only, "He managed the game."

Commented the Orlando Sentinel's Mike Bianchi: "That's coachspeak for, 'He's about as exciting as a white Buick LeSabre, but he didn't mess up too much.' "

Now, anyone wondering where Bob Griese was on Saturday, the day before his son, Brian, started at QB for the Bucs, would have known having seen this video clip of him, doing the broadcast of the Oregon-Purdue game for ABC, but asked to wave the flag of his alma mater before the start of the fourth quarter to rile the fans up:

As the blogsite Brahsome.com notes (linked here):

Of course, while it is tremendously egregious to let your color guy wave one team's flag from the announcing booth as he screams to crowd is problematic, Griese's rampant homerism isn't the biggest issue here; playing "Shout" to get your crowd pumped up before the fourth quarter is. How on earth can you possibly not expect to cough up a 14 point lead with that sort of business happening? Oh, and in good news, Purdue lost in overtime.

As for the Times' mistaque mikstae incorrect information on which Griese was actually playing for TB, you can always fix the online version. We'll see how long that takes.

UPDATE: As of Wednesday AM, it had been updated. That's the beauty of this Internet machine.

USC has (another) bye week, UCLA is asked to get up for a noon-time contest at home (please, make it against Cal, which hasn't figured out how time change works -- and let's remind everyone, daylight savings time isn't until Nov. 2), and the rest of the Pac-10 is still being asked by the local doctor to count backward from 100 every seven numbers (100 ... 92 ... 82 ... 87 .... 97 .....):

==For local interest:
Saturday, noon, FSN Prime Ticket: Arizona at UCLA (with Barry Tompkins, Petros Papadakis and Jim Watson).

==For the rest of the week -- and note: We don't use rankings, because we're not even sure which number matches up to whatever poll any more, except for a consensus that USC is now No. 1 and the rest of the SEC somehow fills out the rest of the Top 8:

Wednesday:

=5 p.m., ESPN2: Kansas State at Louisville (with Rece Davis, Lou Holtz, Mark May and Rob Stone)

Thursday:

=4:30 p.m., ESPNU: Arkansas-Pine Bluff at Alcorn State (with Charlie Neal and Jay Walker)
=5:30 p.m., ESPN: West Virginia at Colorado (with Chris Fowler, Craig James, Jesse Palmer and Erin Andrews)

Friday:

=5 p.m., ESPN2: Baylor at Connecticut (with Sean McDonough, Chris Spielman and Rob Stone)

Saturday:

=7-to-9 a.m. ESPN: "College GameDay" at Auburn, Ala., site of the LSU-Auburn game on ESPN. (Meaning, Kirk Herbstreit has to leave right afterward, catch a flight to Tempe, Ariz., and do that night's ASU-Georgia contest).

=9 a.m., Big Ten Network: Troy at Ohio State (with Thom Brennaman, Charles Davis and Charissa Thompson)
(As Fred Roggin said during his rant-time on KSPN-AM 710 on Monday: Ohio State could not have beaten USC if "it had Beanie, Cecil, Kukla, Fran or Ollie.")
=9 a.m., ESPN: East Carolina at North Carolina State (with Dave Pasch, Andre Ware and Erin Andrews)
=9 a.m., ESPN2: Iowa at Pittsburgh (with Pam Ward and Ray Bentley)
=10 a.m., ESPNU: Central Florida at Boston College (with Dave Armstrong and Larry Coker)
=10 a.m.: ESPN Classic: Akron at Army (with Eric Collins and Shaun King)
=Noon, MTN: Wyoming at BYU (with James Bates and Todd Christensen)
=12:30 p.m., Channel 2/CBS: Florida at Tennessee (with Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson)
=12:30 p.m., Channel 7/ABC: Notre Dame at Michigan State (with Brad Nessler, Bob Griese, Paul Maguire and Stacey Dales)
=12:30 p.m., ESPN: Virginia Tech at North Carolina (with Terry Gannon and David Norrie)
=12:30 p.m., CBS College Sports: Rutgers at Navy (with Tom Hart and Trev Alberts)
=1 p.m., Versus: Utah at Air Force (with Joe Beninati and Glenn Parker)
=4 p.m., FSN West: Rice at Texas (with Bill Land and Gary Reasons)
=4 p.m., Big Ten Network: Ball State at Indiana (with Wayne Larrivee and Chris Martin)
=4 p.m., ESPNU: South Florida at Florida International (with Doug Bell, Charles Arbuckle and Melissa Knowles)
=4 p.m., ESPN2: Wake Forest at Florida State (with Mark Jones and Bob Davie)
=4:45 p.m., ESPN: LSU at Auburn (with Mike Patrick, Todd Blackledge and Holly Rowe)
=5 p.m.: Channel 7/ABC: Georgia at Arizona State (Brent Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit and Lisa Salters)
=5 p.m., CBS College Sports: TCU at SMU (with Carter Blackburn and Aaron Taylor)
=5:15 p.m., ESPNU: Fresno State at Toledo (with Clay Matvick and David Diaz-Infante)

Kings fans have every reason to be miffed by the fact that, for the third season in a row, FSN West is only delivering 10 games on the schedule in high definition. Yes, hockey is supposed to be the sport that defines what's right about high-def.
Daily News reporter Rich Hammond has been trying to get some kind of explanation as to what's going on here on his blog Monday morning (linked here), noting that the latest FSN West and FSN Prime Ticket schedules announced in the last couple of days for the Lakers (35 HD games) and Clippers (31* HD games) are very skewed when it comes to financial backing of games for the Kings and Ducks (also 10 HD games).

*-The schedule on the FSN press release has 31 games listed as being in HD. But then it boasts that of the 47 games on FSN Prime Ticket, 70 percent will be in HD. By our calculator, that means 32.9 games. Do we not have the right abacus?

We'll check around on our end as well. Don't expect any answers that make any sense, other than the Lakers make money for the all-sports network, and hockey doesn't (and probably won't until the Kings do something aside from missing the playoffs each year).

Tuesday's latest episode of the ESPN newsmagazine "E:60: includes a story called "Turf 2 Surf," focusing on two former rival gang members who are trying to give back to the community through a surf camp in Santa Barbara. J.J. Ortiz, a Cal State Northridge graduate, and UCSB grad Manny Raya, grew up in the barrios of Santa Barbara -- bet you didn't know that city had any. The two have returned to their childhood neighborhood and taken kids from the local juvenile facilites to teach them how to surf at beaches such as Malibu and Rincon. Lisa Salters does the story on "E:60," which starts at 4 p.m. with several repeats during the week.

As if we get our politics from ESPN.
Last month, there was Stuart Scott, trying look Barak Obama right square in the eye and talk about hoops and such.
Now, it's Bob Ley, going head-to-head with John McCain, which will debut on Tuesday's "SportsCenter" starting at 6 a.m.
(You see any racial interview profiling here?)
What Scott couldn't get out of the Democractic presidental candidate, Ley had probably the same luck with the Republican nominee, meeting a week ago (Sept. 14) at the NASCAR event in New Hampshire.

An excerpt:

The TV news website TVWeek.com proclaimed the season opener of "Saturday Night Live" with guest host Michael Phelps "Scores Big" -- because it hit a ratings high "not seen since 2001."
NBC had an overnight rating of 7.4 with an 18 share in 55 metered markets, says Nielsen. That's the best rating for the show since Sept. 29, 2001 -- a season opener pushed back after the Sept. 11 attack on New York. Reese Witherspoon was the guest host that night.
The rating, maybe good by some measure, wasn't because of Phelps' performance.
Was there a line he didn't have to stop and go back and repeat once during the show?
Was that skit where he danced with Will Forte just a little too weird (after having to deliver a line that he "fudged his Speedo")? The one where he was on the quiz show with the crazy wig? The skit where he played the weird teenager with the headgear playing the large French horn?
Was the skit at the end about the Michael Phelps Diet so out of context it's likely no one understood that he really had an intake of 12,000 calories a day?
In search of other reviews to back up our opinion:

It's always at the bottom of my TiVo "To Do List" -- all the programs ready to be recorded from now until the end of next week. At the very end, it always reads:
"None Scheduled: 603 Versus, Sports Unfiltered With Dennis Miller"
The show, apparently still on hiatis from last year's writer's strike, has been replace in the Versus "funny sports shows" category.
Versus announced today it's coming out with a twice weekly series called "Sports Soup," hosted by comedian Matt Iseman, and eminating from the L.A. studios of the E! Channel's "The Soup" show.
Promising to "take viewers on a refreshingly candid ride through the sports world," the first half-hour show launches Oct. 14 at 7 p.m. and airs on Tuesday and Thursday nights.
"Pulling material from anywhere and everywhere in the realm of sports-pre and post game shows, press conferences, local media and off-the-wall places-Iseman will call out athletes and coaches, announcers and analysts, anchors and reporters on their comments and actions and make sense of the nonsensical and anything that deserves a closer look," the PR release promises.
"It's our way of providing a voice to sports fans as the show will say what we are all thinking but no one is actually saying, until now," said VP of programming Marc Fein. "That's refreshing."
"This will be the Chad Johnson of sports shows - a little obnoxious, usually hilarious and so fascinating that you just won't be able to take your eyes off it because you have to see what happens next," said Iseman, who got his MD degree from Prineton and Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons but quit work as a doctor to pursue a stand-up comedy act.
Go kill 'em.
The network also launched a Sports Soup specific "microsite" (linked here) for info.

(John Lazar/Daily News)

OK, the official name for it is the Court of Honor, and they're up to 55 at the moment, with more to come, says Coliseum general manager Pat Lynch (above).

We covered the painstaking restoration process of the plaques in today's column (linked here), and this "before" John Kennedy bronze that faces the field, on the facade under neath the torch opposite the game play clock, shows how black, murky, and hard to read they had become. (Even weird stuff dripping off his nose). Pretty nasty, with that daily sun and smog beating down on it. Below is an example of what the same plaque looks like now. And no paint was used on the bronze to get that rich background.

Here's a link to the site of Gonzalo Algarate Design, which was contracted to refurbish all the older plaques (linked here). Algarate had been familiar with the plaques at the Coliseum, having worked in the past with Venice-based Robert Graham (link to his site here) as an assistant fabricator to work on the two Olympic male and female statues that went up outside the facility for the 1984 Olympics.

Lynch said that a change in Commission policy over the last few years has emphasized more living honorees, so they could share in the induction celebration, rather than limiting it to those already deceased. That change in heart began in 2000, when the Commission wanted to honor former USC football player and L.A. City Councilman John Ferraro, who at the time was already stricken with cancer. He was able to attend his ceremony.

Celebrations recently with John Wooden and Vin Scully reflect the new attitude, and Lynch said there is a list of many who are up to have plaques installed in the near future -- including one for all the UCLA football All-Americans who played there, mirroring one done for the USC football All-Americans (installed in 2007) during the school's 125th anniversary.

So what did Wooden do at the Coliseum that was so special? Lynch said that today's honorees won't be limited to contributions made to the Coliseum but also the nearby Sports Arena -- which means more basketball and indoor track stars will be honored. One plaque that will salute Jerry West and Elgin Baylor is in the planning stages (honoring their play with the Lakers at the Sports Arena). Lynch also hinted that plaques to honor musicians as Bruce Springsteen (who did concerts at both facilities and still favors the Sports Arena over any L.A. venue) and the Rolling Stones would be logical as well.

You can't find the names of all current t5 honorees on the Coliseum official site (linked here), or at the Wikipedia entry (linked here), where only about a dozen are named.

So as for the list, for those curious, here is is, in order of induction (with designation):

"It's early in the morning, but the comedic wit is as sharp as ever in the wee hours here in Los Angeles," says Chris Fowler from the set of ESPN "College GameDay" outside the Coliseum on a dreary, overcast day at about 7 a.m. when it came on the air.
They're panning the signage in the crowd. Some of it expected. Others, inspired.
The highlights:

"ESPN Injury Report:
Beanie: Doubtful
Buckeye loss: Definite"

"So Cal is too HOT for Beanies"

"Hey, OSU, Welcome to your Worst McKnightmare"

"We Don't Play Cupcakes"

"V ery
E gotistical
S inster
T ressel"

"T*H*E
Over
Rated
University"

"While You Were Out:
Coach Tressel,
The '80s Called ...
They Want Their Sweater Vest Back"

"U nder
S anchez We
C onquer"

"Rey
Cinco
Ocho"

"Lou Holtz Clubs Baby Seals"

All this pub for Ohio State protypical linebacker James Laurinaitis, and then this story pops up in the New York Times about "the player who created so much hysteria at Ohio State that people waited outside the shower in his dorm to ask for autographs."
That would be linebacker Andy Katzenmoyer, the "consummate dumb jock of the 1990s," according then to Sports Illustrated.
The story by Pete Thamel (linked here) is proported by the author to be "the first sit-down interview with a national publication" that Katzenmoyer has done in a decade.
(That must mean that the story done on Katzenmoyer by the Columbus Post Dispatch last year -- linked here -- doesn't count).
"My life is so regular," the 30-year-old says. "It's so bizarre to think back 8 or 10 years ago and how my life has changed."
So, what happened to him?
Read on ...

Maybe it's because you've, ahem, jumped the shark.
Henry Winkler hasn't. He's in.
You're not. Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyy.
The list, released by USC's sports information department, of who's been issued a sideline pass for Saturday's game:

From those with Hollywood connections:

Jamie Foxx
Denzel Washington
Nick Lachey
Christian Slater
John Krasinski
Ed Helms
Robert Patrick
Kaitlin Olson
David James Elliot
Zach Galifianakis
George Eads
Jerry Bruckheimer
Alexis Jones
Henry Winkler
(We can ID seven of 'em. We're not sure how Lachey stays on the good list)

USC football alums:

Anthony Munoz
Ronnie Lott
Marcus Allen
Charles White
Sam Cunningham
Rodney Peete
Dennis Thurman
Johnnie Morton
Todd Marinovich
Sean Salisbury
Jeff Bregel
Chris Hale
Mazio Royster
Malaefou MacKenzie
David Kirtman
(Salisbury? Seriously? We suspect Petros Papadakis, working for FSN's post-game show, will be there as well. And Brian Hancock? Doesn't take into account that Mike Garrett is also in the house, upping the Heisman presense to three from USC, one from OSU -- see below.)

Those with sports connections:

Dick Butkus
Isiah Thomas
Michael Strahan
Eddie George
Greg Oden
Amare Stoudemire
Anna Rawson
(The golfer? She's an SC alum)
John David Washington
(That's Denzel's son, the former Campbell Hall star running back, who went to Morehouse, then to the Rams, then ...)

USC 2008 Olympians (who will be honored):

Ous Mellouli
Larsen Jensen
Klete Keller
Erik Vendt

Ohio State running back Chris "Beanie" Wells will not play for the fifth-ranked Buckeyes against No. 1 USC on Saturday night because of his injured right foot, coach Jim Tressel announced late this afternoon after the team went through a 40-minute walkthrough at the Coliseum.

"We won't have Beanie tomorrow," Tressel told the assembled media just minutes after he told his team of the decision. "He was getting treatment 15 times a day. I guess if looks could kill, he fought me. I just told the team because it's important our guys know what we thought we should do.

"I just think as I listened to the doctors and I thought about the situation that this was the decision that should be made. We've got good kids. We're going to go after them."

We don't believe it. Here, we'll prove it:

Pete Carroll's first Rose Bowl -- as the secondary coach at Ohio State:

By M.R. KROPKO
Associated Press Writer

The fight is on in Ohio to save the buckeye tree from heading north to, of all places, rival Michigan.

Environmentalists said Friday that global warming threatens to push the growing range for the iconic Ohio buckeye tree farther north.

Although found in other parts of the Midwest, the buckeye tree is the official state tree of Ohio, and the buckeye nut provided the name for sports teams at Ohio State University, whose football rival is the University of Michigan.

Save The Buckeye (linked here), a coalition of environmental activists and outdoor enthusiasts, has a billboard in Columbus warning about the fate of the buckeye tree, and backers plan to hold rallies during football tailgating events.

Tom Bullock, an advocate for the Pew Environment Group in Ohio, insisted there is an urgency.

"People had thought of global warming as something far away, affecting polar bears," Bullock said. "If we don't get started now we will reduce the opportunity to reduce global warming and curb it's worst effects."

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- A physicist has done the math, and says Usain Bolt could have run the 100-meter Olympic final in 9.55 seconds if he had not slowed down to showboat.

"We estimate that he could have finished the race in a time between 9.55 and 9.61," Norwegian physicist Hans Eriksen said Friday in a telephone interview.

Bolt won the final at the Beijing Olympics last month in 9.69 seconds, shaving 0.03
seconds off the record he set in May.

Eriksen, a physicist at the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Oslo, said he got the idea to examine just how quick Bolt could have gone after hearing his coach say that the Jamaican could have run 9.52 seconds.

"We saw the final on television and then spent the whole weekend researching," Eriksen said. "It was fun. We've done more serious research work, but this one got far more attention."

Eriksen and his colleagues analyzed TV footage of the race, focusing on Bolt's position, speed and acceleration, as well as that of runner-up Richard Thompson. Both sprinters slowed before the finish line, but Bolt's chest-beating celebration some 20 meters before the line cut his speed more.

"We don't mean to say that this is the final and ultimate result," Eriksen was quoted as saying in New Scientist magazine. "Instead, it's a fun application and simple physics."

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- Police are accusing a minor league baseball player who spent much of last season with the Harrisburg Senators of having sex with a 15-year-old girl.

Court records say outfielder Garrett Guzman had sex with the Elizabethtown girl in late July. He's accused of a misdemeanor count of corruption of minors.

Police say the victim says she told the 25-year-old Guzman she was 16 years old.

The charging documents state that Guzman admitted he had sex with her.

Senators' general manager Randy Whitaker says Guzman's an employee of the Washington Nationals and declined comment on the charges. Whitaker says Guzman appeared in about 80 games in the season that just concluded.

Court officials say Guzman doesn't have a lawyer on record.

(You can see the director's outtakes of this on the 30th anniversary "Bull Durham" DVD).

Again, today's media column (linked here), and ...

==The next "Real Sports" on HBO (Tuesday, 10 p.m.) has a story on new Fox NFL studio analyst Michael Strahan (from Frank Deford), but also a piece from Bernard Goldberg called "Childhood Lost," on how India's production of more than one million hand-stiched soccer balls (most sent to the U.S.) are still made by children as young as 6 years old. The fortunate ones are paid cents a day for their work; the rest see nothing at all, because they've been sold into debt bondage and are forced to work as indentured servants.

==The NFL Network's "Classic Game" of the week (tonight, 6 p.m.) is the 1975 NFC Division playoff contest between Dallas and Minnesota, dubbed "The Hail Mary Game" (linked here). The Cowboys got the ball with only 1:51 left, down by four, on their own 15-yard line. With 24 seconds left in the game, Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach threw the 50-yard winning touchdown pass to Drew Pearson , which Staubach dubbed a "Hail Mary" -- the first time that term was used to describe such a play.

==Another NFL Net feature to pay attention to: "NFL Replay Real Time," which debuted Monday (4:30 p.m.) (linked here), was able to show 52 of the 56 touchdowns scored in the Week 1 Sunday afternoon games in a one-hour replay. Think of the show "24," and apply it to football. Every play has a time stamped on the screen. If Brett Favre throws a touchdown pass at 1:06 PM, and Devin Hester returns a punt for a touchdown at 1:11 PM, the viewer sees this replays unfold as they transpired.

==KLCS-Channel 58 (linked here) has a "Kickoff Show" airing Sunday at 1 p.m., previewing City section football season (Randy Rosenbloom and the wildly photogentic Eric Sondheimer), followed at 2:30 p.m. by the City Volleyball preview show (Rosenbloom with Wild Will Reinhart). The shows will run in the same time period for the next month. This is the 12th year in a row that KLCS has showcased a preview on City football in L.A. and the third year for volleyball.

In addition to what we've got in today's media column on Kirk Herbstreit (linked here):

**Links this week to:

==The NFL weekend TV schedule (linked here) and other notes (linked here) and (linked here) and even random stuff (linked here).

==The college football TV schedule (linked here), with things specific to USC-Ohio State (linked here) and (linked here) and (linked here) and (linked here) and even Gary Danielson's biggest worries (linked here).

==Prep football media news (linked here)

==Other news of note on ESPN (linked here), Michael Phelps on SNL (linked here),John Elway's blogging (linked here) and baseball misc. (linked here).

**A couple of final blasts from Herbstreit:

==From a story in today's USA Today (linked here), Herbstreit says his four sons will be in attendance Saturday in full OSU regalia.

==From what he told us on the perception of the Pac-10 versus that of the Big Ten:

"Everything is cyclical. We live in a different era with the Internet and blogs and opinions are strong and out there, you hear it much more. Unfortunately, there much more from the vocal minority -- the lunatic fringe I call them. Opinions fly and sometimes there's a knee-jerk reaction to perception versus reality. In the Pac-10, everyone thought it was USC and all the rest. After a couple of weeks, you see USC is still the team, but they after two weeks, I think Cal is legit. They got rid of some of the egomaniacs over the last couple of years and got back to basics and they're dangerous. I didn't expect Oregon to have much offensive firepower without a quarterback who couldn't run or throw. I want to see Harper develope now. Arizona State, you know what you're going to get and I still want to see how they do when Georgia comes to play them. The surprise is Arizona with Mike Stoops feeling the heat. UCLA can beat BYU on Saturday and, if they do, throw them into it, and now you've got five teams battling to get up there with USC. It'll be a fun run in the Pac-10.
"The Big Ten is a better conference than people are willing to give them credit for. In recent years, look at it objectively, Ohio State and Penn State and Wisconsin and Illinois can win. And then there's Michigan State and Iowa and Michigan probably coming down a noatch. Northwestern is maybe another team. But the Big Ten has depth. The Pac-10 is probably heaver at the top.
"What separates the Pac-10 from the Big Ten is offensive skill -- the quarterbacks, wide receivers and running backs. It seems like some of the kids are coming out of the womb ready to throw."

==And what he says happens to the team in this game that loses:

"I think when you talk to players, these are the games that attract them to a program -- a team willing to play anywhere, any time. I understand budgets and the agendas of the athletic directors and coaches trying to be bowl eligible, but the player's agenda is to play in these kind of games. It's easy for a kid to be motivated to be in the weight room in the summer knowing there's a game on the schedule like this so early.
"If it's a blowout, it's back to the drawing board for the losing team. Ohio State definitely has more at stake. They've really invested, after the last couple of years, in putting a lot into this game. There are a lot of NFL players on these teams, and if you lose, you find out what kind of character they're made of. If Ohio State loses, they put the dreams aside and have the goal of winning the Big Ten. USC has been on a roll since 2002 and it's been a rarity to lose any games, even early. They've had so much success that if they lose, the have to buy into the fact that they go to Oregon State and try to win their seventh straight Pac-10 championships. They have an easier time put a loss to the side."

==Just wondering if "NFL On Fox" weathergirl Jillian Warry Barberie Reynolds got lost on the way to the set of CBS' "Swing Town" before last Sunday's debut show. Does anyone dress as much the tart for an NFL-qualify broadcast and still get away with it?

It's not as if she doesn't know proper dress for a weather segment. Here's what she looked (and sounded like) when doing the weather for a Miami station in 1992:

==In an interview with the Wall Street Journal (linked here), Fox Sports chief exec David Hill was asked if he was worried about having to sell the country Tampa against Milwaukee in the World Series.
"As a matter of fact, yes," he said. "You have no idea how many times that question has been asked of me in the last three or four days. But to be in this business you have to be an optimist. ... That doesn't mean you don't think how good the Red Sox and Dodgers in the World Series would be. But whatever it is we put the games on in the most compelling way so we can refresh the fan base every day."

==No Dodgers-Rockies on the national TV this weekend. Fox sends L.A. the Atlanta Braves-N.Y. Mets contest (Saturday, Channel 11, 12:55 p.m.) with Howie (not Chris) Rose and Mark Grace (while 26 percent get Milwaukee-Philadelphia with someone named Tom McCarthy paired with Eric Karros and another 24 percent get Detroit-Chicago White Sox with Chris (not Howie) Rose and -- surprise -- recently fired "Best Damn Sports Show" sidekick Rob Dibble). On Sunday, TBS has Toronto at Boston (10:30 a.m.), while ESPN has Tigers-White Sox (5 p.m.).

From CBS' Gary Danielson, doing Saturday's Georgia-South Carolina game, on what the top of his AP ballot would look like (he says he doesn't vote any longer):

"There are five teams -- Southern Cal, Georgia, Oklahoma, Florida, and Ohio State -- that are basically going to separate themselves from everybody else. Over the course of the season things are going to shake out. The strength of the conference will be the tie-breaker at the end. Two years ago, Florida got the nod over Michigan because of the strength of the SEC. Given the fact that the SEC has won the last two national championships, you have to believe that if it comes down to several teams with only one loss, the SEC is going to win that tie-breaker. Under that scenario, I can't imagine the SEC champion getting left out of the game."

We're thinking there is probably no scenario where anyone at CBS can't imagine a SEC team not getting in.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul was named Cricketer of the Year on Wednesday.

The 34-year-old left-hander was a picture of consistency during the 12-month period considered for the award, saving West Indies on several occasions with his batting displays.

The Guyanese scored 819 runs at an average of 91.0, including three centuries, in eight Test matches. Chanderpaul did well in the One Day Internationals too, aggregating 598 runs in 13 matches with an average of 74.75.

Michael Phelps becomes the first athlete since LeBron James opened the 2007 season to host "Saturday Night Live," and considering his, uh, charisma and personality, not much can be expected of him. Right?

At least he's got eight gold medals to swing around in case things go south.

"No matter what happens, they can't take those medals away," said SNL producer Lorne Michaels in a conference call Thursday morning.

Phelps, who says among his friends he can deliver a great deal of sarcasm, notes that "Tommy Boy" with Chris Farley is his favorite movie -- so that gives him a great SNL foundation.

"I was nervous coming into this because I had no idea what to expect," he said. "After the read-throughs yesterday, I got into it. I felt completely confident yesterday and feeling better about it today. I probably was more nervous about doing this than swimming in Beijing."

Michaels said that he could tell "right away" when doing the run-throughs that Phellps "knows what he's doing. He's not going to be a professional sketch player, but he'll do just fine."

Just don't look for Kenan Thompson to play Phelps' mom.

==A list of all athletes who've hosted SNL (linked here), which starts with Fran Tarkenton in 1977 (the second season), includes O.J. Simpson in 1978, for some reason has Tony Danza (since he did participate in boxing at some point in his punch-drunk career) and Jason Lee (he was a championship skateboarder) and, our favorite, Wayne Gretzky in 1989, after he set L.A. afire with his trade from Edmonton, and did a great spoof of an Elvis Presley movie called "Waikiki Hockey."

== A list of the best athletes who've hosted SNL, according to this site (linked here)

The Associated Press

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Former Brazil striker Dodo was suspended for two years Thursday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport over a failed doping test.

The 34-year-old Dodo tested positive for the stimulant fenproporex after his club, Botafogo, beat Vasco 4-0 in a Brazilian league game June 14, 2007.

He initially was suspended for 30 days and, after passing two other doping tests, was exonerated by Brazil's highest sports court. Soccer's world governing body and the World Anti-Doping Agency filed appeals in September 2007 requesting a ban.

CAS ruled in their favor Thursday, saying Dodo had failed to demonstrate that he bore "no significant fault or negligence" for the presence of the banned substance in his urine samples. CAS ruled Dodo would be suspended until Nov. 7, 2009, taking into account a period of suspension already served.

The CAS verdict will not affect Botafogo's results.

Fenproporex is a stimulant that the body converts to amphetamine and is used in some diet medications.

Keyshawn Johnson says USC wins, 35-10.
Cris Carter says Ohio State wins, 21-17.
What did you expect from a USC and Ohio State alum?
The current ESPN NFL analysts talked up Saturday's game, which ABC has somehow come up with calling it "Collision at the Coliseum."

Says Keyshawn, a USC receiver from '94-95:

"Overall when you look at them historically on both sides of the country, Ohio State, along with Michigan, for a number of years has dominated the Big 10 Conference. Now Ohio State is clearly pulling away from the Michigan of old and standing out on an island by themselves. I think you can say the same about USC where they shared some glory with some Pac-10 teams in the past, but they're getting back to that 1970's dominance with McKay and Robinson as the head coach, where they dominated the recruiting wars, dominated teams they played outside of the Pac-10 Conference ... Before we were asking recruits to come to USC, now recruits are asking, can they come."

Says Carter, an Ohio State receiver from '84-86:

"I think it's a huge opportunity for Ohio State in regards to what people say. They're matched up on a national stage and it's very critical that they show well. Having done well in the last two national championship games, this is important not only for their program, as far as this year in trying to get to the national championship, but also in their national recruiting."

There's been enough complaining over the years about how ABC/ESPN does this synergy thing to perfection -- cross promoting its own stuff to a point where everything else in the outside (real) world doesn't exist.

Le Anne Schreiber has apparently had enough of it.

The ESPN ombudsman (that's code word for "employee asked to critique her own company and then let everyone know they have an ally if there's something that really irks them") says in her latest piece (linked here) that this synergy business has to cool its jets, lest it suffocates those it proports to serve.

"(It happens) so often and relentlessly ... viewers start feeling trapped in the sports equivalent of 'The Truman Show,' she said.

Duh. It's something we, and plenty of others, have been writing for years. And have been told to knock it off. Now, she says it, and it's legit?

Schreiber quotes ESPN Senior VP & Dir of News Vince Doria as saying: "We do carpet bomb you with information about what you can see here. ... But most of the time, the promotion is quick, doesn't terribly interrupt your viewing and provides information that is actually useful to somebody. When viewers complain, do they make legitimate points about interrupted viewing?"

Yes, especially when it's a promotion for ABC's "Wipeout" (hosted by ESPN's John Anderson).

"The problem might not be the cross-promotion itself," Schreiber continues, "which does have its uses for viewers, but a degree of multiplatform corporate synergy that often feels so relentless and all-encompassing that ESPN's heaviest viewers go berserk from time to time. ... (it) can drain the fun out of sports."

Her advice: "Lighten up on the synergy. Don't expend all your creativity devising new ways to drive viewers into the corrals of your biggest business partners. Viewers will flock there on their own."

Friday's media column focuses on how ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit walks a funny line between traitor and homer in the eyes of beer-bonged Ohio State football fans -- those who remember him as the quarterback and captain of the 1992 season, as the son of another former Buckeye captain who later coached under Woody Hayes, and as the family man who lives just a couple miles off campus, doing a daily radio show on the team's flagship station.

There's a promo running now (created by L.A.-based Ground Zero) on ESPN for "College GameDay" that has Herbstreit getting into a sticky situation with USC coach Pete Carroll (above) that must be viewed (linked here) at the College GameDay official site. (Watch Corso's reaction when the phone rings in the ice-cream truck tone a second time). Make sure you click on the box "True" at the end of the promo to see video of Carroll's response -- "He needs a lot of help after working with Lee all these years."

Here's another way to access the video (linked here) and view it full screen on your desktop.

Herbstreit has no doubt that his alma mater, which has qualified for the BCS title game the last two seasons but has hardly been impressive, will have much more at stake in Saturday's game against USC -- but then, so does the Big Ten, which has taken a lot of abuse from fans in the last couple of years.

"It goes back to the 2006 debate over whether Florida or Michigan should be in the national championship game. It was heated. Florida went and dominated Ohio State, and Michigan was dominated by USC (in the Rose Bowl). Those were two embarassing moments.

"Since then, it's been guilt by association. Michigan was embarassed by Appalacian State (in the '07 season opener). Ohio State was outmanned again by the SEC (in the BCS title game). All the of sudden, the momentum and perception is almost out of control.

"Now, Ohio State struggles with Ohio (last week), and I was in Gainsville, Fla. (home of the Florida Gators, doing 'GameDay') and you can imagine what I was hearing: 'Don't worry, the Big Ten schedule will start soon, things will get easier.'

"This game is a perfect storm. Never in my lifetime have I seen the Big Ten viewed as poorly universally as it is now. Now, they're on the big stage again. If you took a poll outside the Big Ten of fans, they'd say the Big Ten was the biggest fraud in college football. When they take the field, that's the perception. If Ohio State loses 38-13, they can win every other game by 50 points, but that's a non-factor the rest of the year. If they lose 23-20, they've earned some respect from those who objectively view it. If they win, obviously, they can win some respect and credibility back. There's no doubt that's a huge subplot in this game, for Ohio State and for the conference."

SCVTV (linked here), which closed down its news operation in March because of financial problems, will come back as city-operated channel featured on the local cable stations in Santa Clarita and deliver a schedule of high school football games, with Dave Caldwell and Tony Moskal back on the call starting with Thousand Oaks at Valencia on Friday night (11 p.m., delayed).

As for the future of SCVTV: Caldwell says the city is trying to find someone to take over the channel and operate it 24/7, with Richard Budman, the previous SCVTV owner, applying for that position. The city of Santa Clarita will announce its decision soon. Budman's plan is to go back to a live news and sports programming Monday through Friday.

==The schedule for LA36 (linked here), which started its coverage last week with Garfield's victory over Birmingham:
Friday: Venice at Taft
Sept. 26: Long Beach Poly at Carson
Oct. 17: Sylmar at San Fernando
Nov. 13: Taft at Birmingham
Nov 14: Garfield vs .Roosevelt
Dec. 13: L.A. City Final at the Coliseum
There is the possibility of adding games in the playoffs late in the season.
Generally the games air the next day and repeat at least five times.
Randy Rosenbloom does the play-by-play, with colorman Dave Marcus and sideline reporter Jennifer Kim.

==The spankin-hot Internet home of high school football, L.A.-based Vootage.com (linked here), already has 150 event videos up on its newish looking home, plus links to short videos, photos and news (much of it from the Daily News archive) worth linking.

==Also, as we ran the schedule last week (linked here), the FSN Prime Ticket 12-game slate starts Friday with Crespi-Birmingham (7:30 p.m.) called by Chris McGee, John Jackson, Jackie Pickering and Dain Blanton.
Other key games for Valley teams on the schedule:
=Oct. 3: Saugus at Notre Dame, 7:30 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket
=Nov. 7: Santa Clara at Oaks Christian, 7:30 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket

This clip of an Angels promo for FSN West -- with Bill Macdonald as Greg Kinnear, and including Rex Hudler, Jose Mota, Steve Physioc and Mark Gubicza -- has, for some reason, been making the rounds on the sports blogs.
The promo is only more than a year old...

Earlier today, we had a note (linked here) about what Phil Simms hinted that he wanted to say about the changing of the guard with the New England Patroits -- Matt Cassel replacing Tom Brady at quarterback -- on today's premiere edition of "Inside the NFL" for Showtime

The show has already been taped this morning in Laurel, N.J., but before it airs (on tape) at 9 p.m., here's how the conversation went on the set:

==Simms:

"We know the offense is not going to be the same. I think everybody agrees on that. You lose, arguably, the best player in the league, it's going to change things. But I say this, when you're a quarterback at the college or pro level, you need an opportunity. You need it to fall your way some times. Think of Matt Cassel. He was at USC. Matt Leinart wins the job from him. If he wins that job, goes on and has a good career at USC...he would've been a high first-round draft pick. So, it didn't work there. But can he overcome the toughest thing of all for a quarterback, lack of experience. If he can settle in, I believe he can get a chance."

==Cris Collinsworth:

"And if I had muscles I could be Mr. Universe. The last game that Matt Cassel played quarterback in as a starter was in high school (Calabasas High). Now, I'm not saying that he may not be a star some day and may be able to take this great Rolls Royce of a football team...and create something that works. I'll tell you, it's a stretch for me right now to sit and there and go, hey, the New England Patriots are going to be fine and this is going to be OK. We watched the tapes. He was OK. It wasn't a train wreck or anything. But, he wasn't much better than OK in that game last week."

==Warren Sapp:

"When you're playing for the New England Patriots and you're the quarterback, it might be all you have to be is PK. Put the ball in the playmakers' hands, the Faulks, the Mosses, and let them do what they do. That defense and special teams are coming to play. I guarantee you that. The difference is, just don't wreck the Rolls Royce - just don't wreck it."

You want to see a Rolls Royce? Look above again. A man's home may be his castle, but man, this is what you're talking about entrusting to Cassel?

Who says Ohio State athletes are subpar in the eyes of the sporting nation?
Not us.
Not after we found this on the official Buckeye website today (linked here), trumpeting a redshirt freshman's dominance in the cross country world:

Men's XC: Williams Named Big Ten Runner of the Week

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Redshirt freshman Taylor Williams earned Big Ten Runner of the Week honors Tuesday for his second-consecutive Top 5 finish last Friday at the Great American Legends race in West Lafayette, Ind.

Williams finished the 8,000-meter course with a time of 26:09 seconds to take fourth place. The Sycamore, Ohio, native paced the Buckeyes to a second-place team finish. This is Williams' first career weekly award.

"I have been very impressed with Taylor thus far," head coach Robert Gary said. "As a redshirt freshman, Taylor has made the absolute most of his time to develop. We have a very young team this year, but he is running as strong as anyone else right now in the conference."

I think we just saw this kid at the liquor store trying to buy ... wait a second. Lemme see that ID again:

John Elway, a stakeholder in the new OpenSports.com website, was asked to do a blog.

"I had to ask what blogging was," the former Denver Broncos star quarterback who prepped at Granada Hills High told the Rocky Mountain News (story linked here).

At OpenSports.com (linked here), the Elway link is already helping generate buzz for it, hopefully better than his last Internet venture. Back in '99, he hooked up with Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky for the start of MVP.com, selling sporting goods on line. A year later, it was gone.

OpenSports.com was launched by Mike Levy, who started SportsLine long ago and sold it to CBS.

Elway, who was in L.A. this past week to promote his new alignment with a Toyota dealership in Manhattan Beach, says this new site has "a more intimate feel" than ESPN.com, CBSSportsLine.com or Yahoo! Sports. A better future than MVP.com? He's banking on it.

Another interesting find on the site: Former USC quarterback and recent ESPN firee Sean Salisbury has turned up to give his NFL insight. Make sure the videos are PG-17 rated.

The lineup at Showtime that we actually pay attention to -- "Weeds" (obvious reasons ... c'mon, Mary-Louise Parker), "Penn & Teller: Bull(crap)" (because when you gotta keep up with what's real and what's manufactured in today's world, you turn to the world's best illusionists) ... not so much "Californication," "Dexter," "The L Word" or "The Tudors," but we're aware of it.

Add to that the latest version of "Inside the NFL" -- tonight, 9 p.m. (instead of HBO at 10 p.m.) -- and the new season will use an eclectic collection of guests for its debut.

Joining new host James Brown and new studio members Phil Simms and Warren Sapp (with holdover Cris Collinsworth, instead of Dan Marino) are NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, former L.A. Rams star defensive end Deacon Jones and ....

"Dancing With the Stars" heifer hoofer Kym Johnson. For real.
It's because she's hooking up with Sapp to compete on the new edition of the reality show, which begins ... does it really matter? Johnson has been on the show four years, dancing with Jerry Springer, Joey Fatone (as they're pictured above), Mark Cuban and Penn Jillette.

Still, we have reservations about her taking a leap with someone so grounded (i.e., gravity challenged) as Sapp. Just as we do having him on a network that promotes weed.

Already, it was Sapp on a conference call with reporters on Tuesday who probably caused a ripple by calling Florida coach Urban Meyers a "dirtbag" for kicking a field goal in the closing moments during an easy win over Sapp's alma mater, Miami, last Saturday.

Collinsworth said about how this year's cast compares and contrasts from previous years: "If feels remarkably like what we did at HBO. There's something about a bunch of football players who are able to reflect on the game and look forward to how it applies. On Sunday, everyone was 'Oh, my goodness, Brady is gone,' but on this show, that's history. It's 'what happens now?' How does Matt Cassell impact the rest of the season for a team that was one 83 yard drive away from a 19-0 season a year ago. this Now you've got a backup who's driving the Rolls Royce of the NFL."

As for Cassel, the former USC backup out of Chatsworth High who's now in the spotlight of the Patriots' offense, Simms said: "I'm looking forward to seeing how they adapt, how fast he can catch up and get into the flow."

When asked if Cassel today could do what Brady did for the Patriots in 2001 (when he came in for Drew Bledsoe), Simms said: "I've heard that a lot but what I have to say about Casel, I'll do more live on the show. I know alot about him, I knew alot about him when he was the backup at USC to Matt Leinart and Carson Palmer, so there's nothing about him that will surprise me. I think there's a chance he can not only be successful, but very successful."

CBS college football analyst Spencer Tillman, given a shot at listing a top five if he were to have a vote in the polls these days, said this afternoon that USC was "clearly" No. 1, with Oklahoma and Georgia in the next two slots, "either one ahead of the other," followed by LSU and "then maybe" Florida.

The fact that he may seem a little SEC bias - he's working for the network that just locked in a 15-year deal with the conference, and the first CBS college game is this Saturday's Georgia-South Carolina contest - and he's a former Oklahoma captain and All-American tailback may have something to do with his picks at Nos. 2 and 3. Tillman got his BA in journalism and communications from Oklahoma as well.

As for why Ohio State isn't in his top 5 mix, Spencer offered:

"This year, it won't take nearly as long -- and this is not a commentary, but simply an observation -- it won't take nearly as long for Ohio State to be exposed. They won't have to wait until the end of the year. And I know that's a rather strong, maybe even terse comment, but I think Beanie Wells' injury will expose them again. People won't be talking about a 51-day layoff (before the Buckeyes play in the BCS title game) or not playing after Nov. 28 or anything like that. The fact that the Big Ten is down overall and they rely so heavily on Beanie, we won't have to wait. You'll see USC totally expose Ohio State this year. No one expected Mark Sanchez to play as well as he did (in USC's opener at Virginia) and that was the question mark. They looked like world beaters."

Your NFL TV schedule for this weekend (for those deficient of DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket status):

10 a.m.: Oakland at Kansas City, Channel 2 (Kevin Harlan and Rich Gannon) -- goes head-to-head with Tennessee-Cincinnati, Buffalo-Jacksonville and Indianapolis-Minnesota.

10 a.m.: N.Y. Giants at St. Louis, Channel 11 (Joe Buck, Troy Aikman -- goes head-to-head with Chicago-Carolina, Green Bay-Detroit and New Orleans-Washington.

1 p.m.: San Diego at Denver, Channel 2 (Dick Enberg and Randy Cross) -- goes head-to-head with New England-NY Jets, Baltimore-Houston and Miami-Arizona. Fox also has San Francisco-Seattle and Atlanta-Tampa Bay in this window.

5:15 p.m.: Pittsburgh at Cleveland, Channel 4 (Al Michaels and John Madden)

5:30 p.m. Monday: Philadelphia at Dallas, ESPN (Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Tony Kornheiser).

Last Sunday, you may recall that Fox had access to the Chargers' home opener against Carolina, but choose instead to carry the Dallas-Cleveland contest. In retrospect, L.A. viewers missed out on a doozy -- Carolina winning on the last-play pass, 26-24, while the Cowboys took care of business in a 28-10 victory.
Fox's philosophy on L.A. being a secondary TV market of San Diego doesn't go far. The network, home of the NFC, will still put on the game it decides is best for all in L.A., which may often not be the Chargers, even though many still consider them to be the best team in the AFC and a likely Super Bowl contender.

CBS, on the other hand, has the AFC package and is more inclined to sent L.A. the Chargers broadcast -- as it will Sunday, instead of Brett Favre and the New York Jets playing at home against New England (with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms) as be the game of most national interest. CBS will also cram as many Raiders games into its schedule -- and with a doubleheader week, it can do that as well in Week 2, even at the expense of a game that may seem to be more nationally interesting -- Indianapolis at Minnesota (with No. 2 CBS team Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf).

In Week 3, CBS has a double-header week again, but San Diego hosts the New York Jets on Monday Night Football, so it's not an issue. Everyone gets it on ESPN. CBS will likely deliver Oakland at Buffalo in the 10 a.m. window (with Don Criqui and Dan Fouts) rather than Cincinnati-NY Giants (going head-to-head against it) and then carry Pittsburgh-Philadelphia (with Nantz and Simms) at 1:15 p.m.

You've got USC-Ohio State from the Coliseum (Channel 7, 5 p.m. with Brent Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit, Erin Andews and Lisa Salters).
You've got UCLA at BYU (Versus, 12:30 p.m., with Joe Beninati, Glenn Parker and Tim Neverett).

And then you've got this (highlighting the best, ignoring the not-so-best) to keep you occupied:

9 a.m.: Iowa State at Iowa (Big Ten Network) with Thom Brennaman, Charles Davis and Charissa Thompson.

9:30 a.m.: Washington State at Baylor (FSN West) with Bill Land and Dave Lapham.

12:30 p.m.: Michigan at Notre Dame (Channel 4) with Tom Hammond, Pat Haden and Alex Flanagan.

12:30 p.m.: Georgia at South Carolina (Channel 2) with Verne Lundquist, Gary Danielson and Tracy Wolfson.

12:30 p.m.: Oregon at Purdue (Channel 7) with Brad Nessler, Bob Griese and Paul Maguire.

12:30 p.m.: Georgia Tech at Virginia Tech (ESPN2) with Terry Gannon and David Norrie.

1 p.m.: Hawaii at Oregon State (FSN West) with Todd Mansfield and Steve Preece.

4 p.m.: Auburn at Mississippi State (ESPN2) with Mark Jones and Bob Davie.

4:45 p.m.: Oklahoma at Washington (ESPN) with Mike Patrick and Todd Blackledge.

5 p.m.: Stanford at TCU (MTN) with James Bates and Todd Christensen.

5 p.m.: Arizona at New Mexico (CBS College Sports) with Tom Hart and Trev Alberts.

7:30 p.m.: Wisconsin at Fresno State (ESPN2) with Joe Tessitore and Rod Gilmore.

9 p.m. (delayed): UNLV at Arizona State (FSN West) with Trey Bender and Juan Roque, Jody Jackson.

The other news today:
CBS, which just signed a 15-year deal with the SEC, says all games with those conference will stream on CBSSports.com (linked here) this season, simulcast with what's on CBS live on TV.
"It keeps with CBS' vision of using multiple platforms to better serve our viewers no matter where they are," said Mike Aresco, CBS Sports' exec VP of programming. The streaming won't affect the network coverage of Army-Navy or Notre Dame vs. Navy in Baltimore (Nov. 15) this season.

I asked ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit this morning if the current polls that have USC at No. 1 and Ohio State in the No. 4-5 range were accurate by his measuring stick.
As an Associated Press poll voter, he said this week he had USC at No. 2 and Ohio State at No. 6, with Florida at the top.
The former Buckeyes quarterback and Columbus, Ohio, native added: "I picked before the season Florida to play USC in the national championship. Most of the people in Ohio didn't like that, but I wasn't trying to prove a point. It's just what I think."
Herbstreit and the rest of the ESPN "College GameDay" crew will be outside the Coliseum for Saturday's show (7 to 9 a.m.) and he'll then call the game with Brent Musburger and Erin Andrews at 5 p.m. for ABC (Channel 7).

One more reminder about today's airing on ESPN2 about the documentary "Kicking It," about the 2006 Homeless World Cup -- today at 6 p.m. (also Wednesday at 7 p.m.)

Without giving away the ending of the stories to these eight players who are profiled -- a goalie and defenseman from Ireland, a goalie from Afghanistan, a top scorer from Kenya, a 62-year-old from Spain (named Jesus), and a player and coach from Russia, for example -- we will tell you that director Susan Koch did not expect everything to be tied up into a neat little bow after all her filming was done.
Meaning, even though many of the players' lives are changed through this experience, they still are human, and frail, and don't always have a happy ending.
"I didn't want this to be polyana or unrealistic," Koch said. "I had a tendency to wish that, but it's not the way things happen. This makes you realize how vunerable these homeless players really are when they return from the tournament. It's always an uphill battle for some of them."
Pay special attention in the documentary to Russian coach Arkady Tyurin. He says how important it is for his Russian team not to just be at the 2006 event, but to win it -- because he's looking at the big picture.
"People don't expect to see Russians as good players," he says. "If we win, we will have the right to be winnersr and to be part of human beings."
Russian homeless fight a stereotype of being drunk on vodka, unwilling to find work. Tyurin wants his team to win so that the issue of homelessless isn't a problem his country can ignore any longer. The publicity from winning, he believes, will help expose the issue.

We wrote more about the Homeless World Cup in Sunday's column (linked here), did a followup blog with links to various sources (linked here), and have even more links directly related to the documentary here:

==The official "Kicking It" movie site (linked here)

==An online chat Thursday with "Kicking It" producer Ted Leonsis from ESPN.com (linked here).

==The official "Katalyst" site of Kevin Carroll, a motivational speaker, supporter of the Homeless World Cup, and featured in the documentary's opening sequence (linked here).

==Order the DVD (linked here) from Amazon ($24.95). It already has this endorsement from a reader E. Gerberich of Aurora, Colorado:

"I am not a soccer/football fan. I don't work with the homeless. Yet when I saw this offering at the Impact Film Festival during the Democratic National Convention in Denver, I was intrigued. An *international* sporting event--for *homeless* people? Frankly, I was stunned to discover anyone had managed any sort of multinational cooperation on behalf of the disenfranchised at all, let alone from such war-torn and poor countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kenya, etc. Still, I was entranced to see the reactions of these "lost" men as they worked toward this single goal, and in the process acquired many of the skills they needed to better their lives, or, at the very least, the hope to hold out for a better future. My favorite part was seeing the reactions as these men, few of whom had ever left their home cities, let alone their countries, as they discovered their similarities as well as their differences with their counterparts from around the world. Not everyone went home with a trophy, but everyone returned with something infinitely better--pride."

While we're trying to get our head around this idea that one man will be employed by the Dodgers for 60 years -- that's Vin Scully, who agreed this weekend to stay on through 2009 (see this link), God help him -- we dove into some other L.A. franchise history by filling out our online ballots (linked here) to help determine the Top 10 moments in L.A. history, as well as determine the all-time L.A. team.
Polling ends, by the way, tonight. So hurry it up.
Here's how we looked at it:

As for our 10 (not in any particular order) top moments in L.A. Dodger history (by order of year):

1959: Roy Campanella Night at the Coliseum
1965: Sandy Koufax's perfect game
1968: Don Drysdale's six consecutive shutouts
1978: Bob Welch strikes out Reggie Jackson to save Game 2 of the World Series
1981: Rick Monday's game-winning homer to clinch the NLCS
1983: R.J. Reynolds' squeeze bunt on Sept. 11 pennant chase game against Atlanta to cap a four-run ninth-inning rally (even Scully would tell you this is on his personal favorite list)
1988: Orel Hershiser's consecutive scoreless innings streak
1988: Kirk Gibson's Game 1 World Series homer
2004: Steve Finley's grand slam clinches the NL West for the Dodgers with a seven-run outburst in the bottom of the ninth.
2006: Four consecutive homers in the bottom of the ninth to tie San Diego, then Nomar Garciaparra's homer in the 10th to win it.

The runner-ups (just missing the cut):

Hope you got enough bars to get this late news in time: We've been alerted to the fact that Michael Phelps, who'll be hosting NBC's "Saturday Night Live" this week, won't be in New York for rehersals on Monday.

Before heading over to the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" for an appearance Monday night, he'll swing by the Boys & Girls Club of Burbank to speak to the kids about his Michael Phelps Foundation (with is funded by Speedo) and perhaps show off his eight gold medals. His mom, she may be with him as well. We can't be sure that isn't always the case.

The Phelps Tour goes from 2 to 3 p.m. at the club on 2233 N. Buena Vista Street, Burbank.

There should have been much more fanfare with this than having to have stumbled across it on the Dodgers' Website (linked here), but Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully says that when his current three-year contract runs out at the end of this season, he'll be back for at least one more year in 2009.

That'll give him 60 years with the franchise, at which point he'll be 82 when that deal runs out.

Scully apparently told the team Friday that he was OK with agreeing to another year after his wife, Sandra, said it was all good.

"When you're on the road as much as we are, it's the loneliness of your wife that you consider," Scully said. "But she said, 'It's been such a part of my life for so long, you might as well do it if you want to do it.' And I still enjoy it. I still feel like I'm happy to be here, I still get goosebumps with an exciting play. So, I told Frank (McCourt, club chairman) that I'll try it for another year."

Scully said he will continue with the same broadcasting workload -- calling virtually all home games, plus road games as far east as Colorado. He said he made no commitment beyond 2009.

With a Sports Illustrated story on him this week (linked here), you'd think this kind of news would have come out in that piece.

We have it on background, meanwhile, that Scully told at least one person who contacted us that '09 "will probably be my last season." We have yet to confirm that with him. Stay tuned.

So we happened to be in town this Sunday night for the debut of the latest incarnation of Fred Roggin's "The Challenge" online sports quiz (linked here), which, as you know, pops up after John Madden runs out of noises to describe the NBC NFL game.

Season 3 changes: Back to a half hour, much more condensed as a quiz than previous years -- only four questions (instead of eight) and only three answers per question (instead of four) -- so right away, we fear there's very little room for error when trying to win this thing by the end of the year.

Our fears came true.

We didn't even make the top 100 the first night of those who played along at home. We're not even sure if we made the top 200. Miss one, and you're really knocked down the line.

While so much time was given to Petros Papadakis being upset that there were too many cut away shots of Kim Kardashian during the New Orleans Saints' telecast, given to guys standing at Woodland Hills restraunts taking guesses at the simpliest of questions, given to Roggin doing voice over of goofy video clips ("Is that your stinger or are you just happy to see me?") and the usual Dish Adams (not his real name) riffs on fantasy players, the Q-and-A portion quiz really takes a back seat to all the other components.

Yes, we're disappointed in that. But their research must have shown that this is how they should fill a half hour. There are prizes now (at least, you qualify to win one) if all you do is blindly answer a question. No instant rewards for being correct.

So be it. It just means we won't be all that inclined to make this appointment television.

But we'll give it a go anyway, in the spirit of Petros' Peninsula High T-shirt:

Question 1: Who was the last Super Bowl champion to fail to make the playoffs the following season?
A: Broncos
B. Steelers
C. Buccaneers

Question 2: (Video of New Orleans QB Drew Brees having his pass deflected back to him, which he catches and then runs with): Which of the following can a quarterback not do after catching a deflected pass:
A. Pass again
B. Run
C. Punt

Question 3: How many gold medals did the U.S. win at the Beijing Olympics?
A. 34
B. 35
C. 36

Question 4: Before managing the Dodgers and Yankees, what team was Joe Torre the skipper of?
A. Cardinals
B. Mets
C. Braves

Think of this while you're watching Brett Favre scramble around for the New York Jets (at Miami, Channel 2, 10 a.m.), the words of John Elway, who says he never had a thought of pulling an un-retirement after his days in Denver were over:

"No, no," the former Granada Hills High standout said when he was on with Andrew Siciliano and Krystal Fernandez on Fox Sports Radio on Friday. "I knew that, once I made that decision. That's why I always tried to keep it to myself. Because I didn't want to go back on my word once I was committed one way or the other. Once I said it was time to move on... you know you always look back and you always think in the back of your mind, did you do the right thing? But I never, ever, ever made a thought that I would ever go back and really, actually un-retire, even though it's always in the back of your mind."

As for whether Favre will regret it: "I think he is because he's not in Green Bay," Elway said. "I think that he's obviously getting to play, which he wanted to do, but I think it's a totally different situation for him. I think that he's probably realizing that he had a pretty good set-up there in Green Bay, and he was comfortable there. He's with a new offense and new city and new teammates, which is probably the easiest thing to get by, but, I just think that he's probably really regretting the fact that he's not still in Green Bay."

==Now, compare that with the latest story in Onion Sports (linked here) that has the headline:
Brett Favre Getting That Retirement Itch Again

"I always told myself I'd know when it was time to walk away," the guaranteed first-ballot Hall of Famer told reporters at the Jets practice facility. "But after 17 or 18, you know, practices as the quarterback of this team, I'm just tired, mentally and physically."

In putting together today's column (linked here) on the Homeless World Cup, with a blog item (linked here) to various links to important related sites, we made a connection with Paul Freese, the director of litigation and advocacy for Public Counsel pro-bono legal council. He could not say enough about the impact of "Kicking It" can have on those who see homelessness in a new light.

"I think that the message 'Kicking It' sends to other homeless listing in the thoes of despondency is one of hope and pride. Hope, in seeing that the human spirit can triumph over the most life-shattering circumstances; pride, in witnessing those who share your destitution and powerlessness as a class represent with such grit, resilience and triumphant spirit.

"I especially loved that 'Kicking It' included an elderly character from Spain whom many homeless will relate to even if they can no longer play in an athletic event. He was haunted by a profound sense of self-doubt and worthlessness - feelings reinforced though all his experiences on the streets and jails - until he came upon this opportunity. Yet he summoned the will and spirit to overcome those depressing forces to become the heart and soul of his team."

More information on the Homeless Prevention Project provided by the L.A.-based Public Counsel Law Center (linked here).

==Freese came as a contact after talking to director Susan Koch, a Washington D.C.-based filmmaker who says she'd never done anything sports-related before "Kicking It."
She found out about it from reading a blog item on the World Economic Forum that happened to mention the Homeless World Cup.
"I'm always looking for make documentaries about social issues in an entertaining way," she said. "I love the fact that it will now be on ESPN, with 90 million viewers who get exposed to something that they might not otherwise think about. That's a perfect home for it."

==A link to an interview that Voice of America did with Lawrence Cann, who organizes the U.S. Homeless Cup and directs the team that will go to the Homeless World Cup (linked here).

==The U.S. Homeless World Cup team (linked here) which, aside from Diaz and Figueroa from L.A., includes players from Santa Rosa, Minneapolis, New York, Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C. and Austin, Tex.

Save the date: Sunday, Sept. 21, 2 p.m., at the Pasadena Central Library, free admission to The Baseball Reliquary sponsored "Poetry Ball."

This celebration of baseball poetry and prose begins at 2 p.m., featuring readings of the works of such wordsmiths as Walt Whitman, Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, Robert Creeley, Tom Clark, May Swenson, Donald Hall, Kenneth Patchen, and Quincy Troupe.

"In fact, Robert Frost, perhaps the best known and most beloved poet of the 20th century, summed up his passion for the game in a letter, written early in his literary career," says Terry Cannon, the Baseball Reliquary leader. "(Frost) said: 'Nothing flatters me more than to have it assumed that I could write prose -- unless it be to have it assumed that I once pitched a baseball with distinction.'"

The Los Angeles Bards, led by Michael C. Ford, did a live reading of baseball literature for the organization six years ago and recorded a CD. Actress Amber Tamblyn is part of the group that includes Brendan Constantine, Jerry Garcia, Eloise Klein Healy, Rick Lupert, Bill Mohr, Mindy Nettifee, Harry E. Northup, Holly Prado and Kevin Patrick Sullivan.

More info at The Baseball Reliquary (linked here).
The Pasadena Library: 285 E. Walnut, Pasadena, 626.791.7647

But to hear the opening that Tom Hammond had to read aloud like doing Shakespeare in the Park for NBC's coverage of Notre Dame's football opener against that San Diego State juggernaut.

If you couldn't allow it to wash over you in all its verbal glory (it'll be online somewhere), here's the transcript:

(with a montage of Touchdown Jesus and other campus monuments)

"The football season opener is always special on the Notre Dame campus. The sun still rises high in a fair sky. The trees still covered in leaves of green. Ahead, lie the colors of autumn and the highs and lows of the gridiron campaign. But for now, all is optimism. Yet as Charlie Weis led his squad in the familar ritual in the march across campus, Irish fans wondered if his off-season changes will turn the team around as he watches his team take the field at Notre Dame Stadium."

Pass the syrup. My teeth already hurt.
And how's that for setting the stage for failure.

Sunday's column we've put together focuses on the Homeless World Cup soccer tournament, coming up in December in Melbourne, and two Los Angeles players who will be competing in it -- representing the U.S.:

These are shots of Densi Diaz (right) and Johnny Figueroa (below), both of Los Angeles' Jovenes program, who've been picked for the eight-man U.S. team to compete in this year's tournament. We found them on the Street Soccer USA blog (linked here).

Jovenes, Inc., in Boyle Heights, the charity organization that supports the Los Angeles Street Soccer team (linked here) is accepting donations to help sent Figueroa and Diaz to Australia. There is a third L.A. player, Carlos, prepared to also go to Melbourne in case one of the other eight cannot make it.

There's a must-see primer that goes with it -- the Colin Farrell-narrated documentary, "Kicking It," which debuts on ESPN2 on Tuesday (6 p.m.) and Wednesday (7 p.m.).

A few links to go to for more information:

==The Homeless World Cup site (linked here)

==The Street Soccer USA site (linked here), sponsored by the Community Works 945 of the Urban Ministry Center in Charlotte, N.C., and run by Lawrence Cann.

==The official "Kicking It" movie site (linked here)

==The National Coalition for the Homeless (linked here)

==Above is a YouTube.com clip highlighting the 2007 U.S. team participating in last year's event.

==Also, the book "Goal! The Story of the Homeless World Cup" by organizer Mel Young, is one we recommended years ago when we first came across it. Go to this link (here) to order a copy. And a bio of Young (linked here) from the Homeless World Cup site.

Should he not save the sport of soccer in this country, could David Beckham revive the sports card collectable industry?
Upper Deck said today because Beckham has "intrigued" collectors with his "megastar power" and "long-term collectability," it has featured the Galaxy's star its 2008 MSL collection, inserting game-used jersey swatches and autographs in packages.
Sure, teammate Landon Donovan is heavily marketed as well. But when a kid is ripping open a $1.99 pack of cards, whose old jersey does he really want to smell?

The rest of the weekend media notes, post media column (again, linked here), all that's non-football related:

==Maybe this should have deserved bigger coverage. Maybe not.
An item in the San Diego Union Tribune a day ago (linked here) reported that Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton (not his real name) has bolted from his San Diego 3-to-6 p.m. weekday gig on XTRA Sports 1360. He announced it on the air Wednesday night.
Today's LARadio.com, the story expands to the fact that 'Saw has also severed ties with KLAC-AM (570).
A quote he send via email to Don Barrett: "I am exiting XTRA Sports and Clear Channel Radio after 22-years as the afternoon drive time host. This has been a great run from the legendary first days at XTRA 690 on that 77,000-watt all-Sports blowtorch signal, thru all the changing of frequencies, stations, and management leadership. These people have been great, and I have given them every ounce of energy I had over the years." As a "free agent," he say he is looking for "new challenges in a new setting," open to a sports-talk gig, play-by-play or both. Barrett also includes 'Saw's phone (858.386.2013) and email contact (hacksaw5555@gmail.com).

==Another followup on LARadio.com, former L.A. legendary sportscaster Gil Stratton, recovering from a heart attack last month, reports that he has been able to drive again and "now it's just a test to regain my energy and strength." Go to his Webpage (linked here) for more on the 86-year-old living in Toluca Lake.

==In addition to covering the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies (today, 4:30 p.m.), ESPN Classic will reair games today involving the inductees, starting with Dick Vitale's coverage of the 1995 North Carolina-Duke game (8 a.m.). It's followed by Adrian Dantley playing in the 1987 Eastern Conferene final Game 5 (with Detroit, vs. Boston) at 10 a.m.; Patrick Ewing in the 1994 Eastern Conference final Game 7 (with New York, vs. Indiana) at noon; Pat Riley in an NBA Films review of the 1988 Lakers' title run (2 p.m.) and Hakeem Olajuwon playing in the 1995 NBA finals Game 4 (for Houston, vs. Orlando) at 2:30 p.m.

==By the way, aside from Vitale, the only others in the Basketball Hall who have gone in first as a broadcaster and then as a contributor -- the Lakers' Chick Hearn and former coach and current ABC game analyst Hubie Brown, although there is a movement to have Billy Packer, already recognized as a broadcaster who recently left CBS, to be next. Just trying to figure out what Packer actually contributed.
This year's Curt Gowdy Media Award goes to former USA Today writer David DuPree (now at SI.com) and long-time New York radio broadcaster Bob Wolff. Mike Breen will host the TV coverage of the ceremony.

Rewind to the plight of the NFL Network (which we covered some in today's media column -- linked here) as it tries again to make some headway onto the TV cable landscape, as it is tossed around on different sports tiers while companies try to justify how it can pass along the cost of such a specialized sports channel to its customers, we got this to add:

==As for the new Sunday morning studio show that NFL Network will air starting this week -- "NFL GameDay Morning" (7 to 9 a.m.), it will be worth watching to see how Spero Dedes, the Lakers' radio play-by-play voice who has called games for the NFL Network, works this into his schedule come later in the fall, as he tries to wrangle analysts Marshall Faulk and Warren Sapp in the Culver City studio, while incorporating reporter Adam Schefter from New York, plus updates from Alex Flanagan and Lindsay Soto.

"For football fans, Sunday mornings are about two things: anticipation and excitement," said Eric Weinberger, the NFL Net executive producer. "We will have our reporters at the games as well as access to radio broadcast teams of all 32 clubs for the latest breaking news. Plus we have the most outspoken, opinionated and larger-than-life figures in our game in Warren Sapp."

Brian Hyland, who won multiple Sports Emmys for his work at HBO working on "Inside the NFL," will produce this new show.

==A Q-and-A with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell posted Wednesday on CBSSportsLine.com (linked here) by reporter Clark Judge -- who is convinced there's no L.A. team coming anytime soon -- also covers his frustration by the fact the NFL Network struggles to establish a foothold, especially in New York:

"I'm frustrated only because it's obvious consumers want it," Goodell said. "We don't own the distribution (outlet), in this case Time/Warner in the New York area or some of the other cable operators who control that access to the home. I'm frustrated they don't recognize what everyone else seems to recognize: That it's high-quality entertainment and something that the fans and their consumers want. It's frustrating to see why they aren't delivering it to their consumers. It's clear they talk about a sports tier, but they're not committed to a sports tier. They do not treat independent programmers the same as the channels they own. So there is a discrimination factor we face as an independent programmer. Also it's extremely clear that NFL football has a very broad and deep following and that this kind of a network should be available to the broadest possible distribution outlet they have.

Q: There was talk of an ESPN-NFL Network merger. Any substance to it?

G: We talk with our media partners all the time about alternatives both to the NFL network and other media opportunities. We see ESPN as one of those partners that we have great respect for, and we have had dialogue with them. But we've also had conversations with other partners that should be intriguing with respect to the NFL Network as far as distribution in trying to make it more compelling than it is now for our fans.

More follow up of today's media column, moving ahead with college and prep football:

==Without No. 1 USC or new media darling UCLA on the tube, the best call to set up your Saturday viewing (starting with ESPN's College GameDay in Gainesville, Fla., for the Miami-Florida contest) includes scouting out the Trojans' next opponent (Ohio State), the Bruins' next opponent (BYU) and the future of the Notre Dame program (against a San Diego State team that couldn't be Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in its opener):

=Ohio at Ohio State (ESPN, 9 a.m.) with Pam Ward and Ray Bentley
=Miami (Ohio) at Michigan (ESPN2, 9 a.m.) with Dave Pasch and Andre Ware
=BYU at Washington (FSN West, noon) with Barry Tompkins, Petros Papadakis and John Jackson
=San Diego State at Notre Dame (Channel 4, 12:30 p.m.) with Tom Hammond, Pat Haden and Alex Flanagan (game also heard locally on radio with KLAA-AM 830 as the affiliate)
=Oregon State at Penn State (Channel 7, 12:30 p.m.) with Brad Nessler, Bob Griese, Paul Maguire and Stacey Dales
=Louisiana Tech at Kansas (FSN West, 4 p.m.) with Bill Land, Gary Reasons and Emily Jones
=Miami at Florida (ESPN, 5 p.m.) with Brent Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit, Lisa Salters and Erin Andrews
=Stanford at Arizona State (FSN West, 7 p.m.) with FSN Arizona team Trey Bender, Juan Roque and Jody Jackson
=Texas at UTEP (ESPN2, 7:15 p.m.) with Mark Jones and Bob Davie

==We'd be satisified if the ABC crew of Nessler, Griese and Maquire didn't do a phoner with the retired Keith Jackson during Saturday's telecast. It may have sounded like a cool idea to give the voice of college football a call during the USC-Virginia game last Saturday, but all it did was make for some awkward fawning, just moments after the Trojans took a 31-7 lead over the Cavaliers with 12 minutes left in the third quarter.
Jackson, from his home in Sherman Oaks, told the crew that "outside of fighting parking lot attendants, I don't miss much of anything" about doing the games any longer. He also remarked that the USC-Texas national championship game of 2006 -- his last -- wasn't one of the best games he'd ever attended (as Nessler asked), because of a "dreadful" call by the official by not calling Longhorns QB Vince Young down and by some mistakes that the Trojans made at the end. From there, it was like that "Saturday Night Live" skit when Chris Farley was "interviewing" Paul McCartney ... "remember when we did that '98 Rose Bowl..." said Griese. ... And "how many times did you really say, 'Whoa Nellie!'" during a broadcast.
Finally, Nessler said: "We'll let you get back to the ballgame instead of gabbing with us." Best call Nessler made the whole game.

==More info on the new two-hour prep football show on KSPN-AM (710) is at this link.

==FSN Prime Ticket's high school slate of 10 broadcasts doesn't begin until Sept. 12, but its "High School Spotlight" starts tonight (10:30 p.m.) with a preview of the upcoming season anchored by Lindsay Soto.
The schedule for this season with Chris McGee, John Jackson, Jackie Pickering and Dain Blanton:
=Sept. 12: Birmingham at Crespi, 7:30 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket
=Sept. 19: Mater Dei at Corona Centennial, 8:30 p.m. (delayed), FSN West
=Sept. 26: Edison at Servite, 10:30 p.m. (delayed), FSN Prime Ticket
=Oct. 3: Saugus at Notre Dame, 7:30 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket
=Oct.10: Diamond Ranch at Bishop Amat, 7:30 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket
=Oct. 17: Mission Viejo at Tesoro, 7:30 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket
=Oct. 24: Upland at Los Osos, 7:30 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket
=Oct. 31: Chaparral at Temescal Canyon, 7:30 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket
=Nov. 7: Santa Clara at Oaks Christian, 7:30 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket
=Nov. 13 (Thurs.): Orange Lutheran at Mater Dei, 7:30 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket

==In addition to games on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, NFL Network and Versus, the CBS College Sports Network has partnered with MaxPreps to deliver eight prime-time high school football games starting tonight (Robert E. Lee of Montgomery, Ala., vs. Prattville, Ala.). No California teams are on the schedule (good luck trying to find it on their website, linked here).

Again, with today's media column now online (linked here), we move the chains forward:

==Say, did ESPN's John Clayton really "break" the story Thursday about Dante Culpepper's retirement? Not likely, the AOL Fan House says in a story it broke Thursday (linked here).

==Larry Kahn's syndicated Sports USA Radio network (linked here) starts its eighth full season of college football with 19 regular-season and five bowl games and seventh season of NFL games with 34 regular-season contests, reaching more than 300 affiliates across the U.S. and Canada. The company this year built a studio in Simi Valley for Brian Golden and Rod Van Hook to do their pre-, post- and halftime shows, plus in-game updates during the college and NFL game coverage, joined by former Denver Broncos GM Ted Sundquist on Sundays.
Kahn and Howard David continue to do play-by-play on almost all NFL doubleheaders, which are broadcast on KFWB-AM (980), except for the first two games involving the San Diego Chargers this Sunday and on Sept. 28 (schedule linked here). Coverage starts Sunday with Jacksonville at Tennessee (10 a.m., with David and Dan Fouts).
Kahn also did Monday's UCLA-Tennessee contest (not hear in the L.A. market because of UCLA rights) with former Bruins coach Terry Donahue and former USC coach John Robinson as his analysts. Robinson will continue to do games for the network on Saturdays when his schedule permits, but his main focus will be to work with John Madden on the NBC NFL Sunday night broadcasts). Tom Dillon and Gary Barnett will be the primary college football game broadcasters (continuing with Saturday's Stanford-Arizona State), as Kahn reports that his network has officially passed Westwood One as far as the number of stations for college games (link here to the schedule, which for now does not have a regular L.A. affiliate)

==Sirius XM Radio also starts its fifth year carrying all home and road team broadcasts, as well as national radio broadcasts, of the NFL schedule (schedule linked here).

More NFL TV talk:

==New Fox game analyst Brian Billick, the former Baltimore and Cleveland head coach, said it on a conference call whether Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman can do his new gig on the FSN "Pro Football Weekly" report -- flying from San Diego to L.A. on Thursdays for the show's taping -- while he tries to play on a bad knee: "From a pure coaching standpoint, you don't want your player to do anything that detracts from their preparation for the game but that's unrealistic. At the end of the day, you've got to let these men be men. Now, that doesn't mean you don't counsel a young man to make sure that he understands the time and energy he's going to expend to do those types of things.The biggest concern that I would have is the cumulative wear and tear after a while and that just adds something more on your plate. Some players can handle that type of thing and some players can't. As a coach, you'd rather they don't do anything."

Others have also chimed in:

New Fox studio analyst Michael Strahan added this about Merriman's decision to continue playing on the knee despite the advice of several doctors to have surgery: "I actually had some correspondence with him about it. If he feels that he can play the way he's used to playing then he should be out there. If he feels that he's not going to be able to perform the way we expect him to perform, then he shouldn't be out there. Once he's on that field, we don't want to hear that he's hurt. No one will give you leeway once you're out there on that football field. I just hope he made the right decision."

From Fox game analyst Troy Aikman: "You've got to trust that he's making the decision that's in the best interest of himself and not just what's in the best interest of the football team. Obviously, most people know that (Chargers coach) Norv Turner is a close friend of mine and me knowing him the way I do, I don't think that Norv would want to risk the career of one of the great young players in this league. If he doesn't feel that he's giving the production or helping the team in the way that he should then he or the organization should step in."

From CBS studio analyst and former Steelers coach Bill Cower: "Shawne, like anyone else, no one here has sat down and listened to exactly what was told to him. It's his decision. It's different than a concussion issue where there are more tests and symptoms prevelant. Again, it's unfair to be judgementa when we're not in the room. I'm respectful of that. He knows his body and knows how he needs to play."

More football stuff to start the NFL season, before the launch of the Friday media column:

==Fred Roggin's "The Challenge" on KNBC-Channel 4 (linked here), the interactive sports trivia game that gives away stuff like flat-screen TV sets and vacation packages to those who endure the entire season and rack up the most points, makes a return following the NBC Sunday night NFL telecast, but with a few more alterations:
=It's back to a half hour, after trying to expand last season to a full hour.
=By answering at least the first two questions, or the last two, there's a chance to win at the end of the show. Starting in week 2, there'll be giving away three prizes per show.
=The questions are shorter: Only three possible answers instead of four.
Again, the concept: Be on your computer when the Sunday night game ends, or watch it from a sports bar and have your cell phone handy to text the answers, and see how much you know. Unfortunately, we'll be away from the TV set for the season debut, so when we begin in Week 2, you'll have the advantage in the annual "Challenge the Stupid Sportswriter" contest we try to pull off.

==The Southern California TV alignment for this weekend's games:
Sunday:
=New York Jets at Miami (Channel 2, 10 a.m.) with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms (while the San Diego market gets Kansas City-New England as opposed to Houston-Pittsburgh, Cincinnati-Baltimore and Jacksonville-Tennessee)
=Tampa Bay at New Orleans (Channel 11, 10 a.m.) with Thom Brennaman and Brian Billick (as opposed to St. Louis-Philadelphia, Seattle-Buffalo and Detroit-Atlanta)
=Dallas at Cleveland (Channel 11, 1:15 p.m.) with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman (as opposed to, surpringly, Carolina-San Diego and Arizona-San Francisco)
=Chicago at Philadelphia (Channel 4, 5:15 p.m.) with Al Michaels and John Madden
Monday:
=Minnesota at Green Bay (ESPN, 4 p.m.) with Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Tony Kornheiser
=Denver at Oakland (ESPN, 7:15 p.m.) with Mike Greenberg, Mike Golic and Mike Ditka)

==ESPN, which has reunited Chris Berman with John Saunders and Tom Jackson for a Sunday 4 p.m. "SportsCenter" that will focus more on rehashing the day's NFL coverage, also has its lineup of stories ready for the "Sunday NFL Countdown" (8 a.m.), hosted by Berman with Jackson, Mike Ditka, Steve Young, Chris Mortensen, Keyshawn Johnson and Cris Carter (but no more Emmitt Smith).
About the only one we've vauguely interested in: The "Mayne Event' segment take a look at "how the New York media is reacting to Brett Favre's arrival, from the eyes of three 'fringe' reporters." We have no more explanation than that.
And there's no more scheduled appearances by that 10-year-old kid from Chicago, Jason "Takin' it to the" Krause. Which, really, is fine with us.

Before we launch into Friday's media column, which will focus on Al Michaels' and John Madden's thoughts about how long it'll be before there's another NFL team in L.A., tonight's Giants-Redskins contest on NBC (KNBC Channel 4, 4 p.m.) will test out the network's new system for the its simulcast coverage at both its website and that of the league -- NFL.com (linked here) and NBCSports.com (linked here).
It'll bring a new dimension to the network coverage. Extra features such as additional camera angles, live stats and updates from the sidelines that don't get into the TV broadcast are available.
"The intent going in would be to have the type of reports that we would do on television, but due to the circumstances in the game, we would be able to get the information online taking into consideration that people watch games differently now than they did before," said sideline reporter Andrea Kremer.
Producer Fred Gaudelli explains that: "Everything gets watched a little bit differently now than they did five years ago, let alone 20 years ago. This is just the next step."

A gesture of more than just giving back to his community, former UCLA basketball star Arron Afflalo will be at Compton Salvation Army today at 10 a.m. (736 E. Compton Blvd.) to help distribute boxes of food and personal care items in a program coordinated by the Feed The Children organization.
The Detroit Pistons guard and Compton native attended Centennial High (the CIF Player of the Year in 2003 and '04) before becoming a UCLA All-American.
"Compton is where I grew up and I wanted to give back to my community, now that I am in a position to do so," said Afflalo in a release sent out. "It will always be a priority to me to help people who need it and by partnering with groups like Feed The Children and The Salvation Army of Compton, I am able to do so."
The Salvation Army of Compton is a Feed The Children partner agency and has pre-identified all 400 families who will each receive over $40,000 worth of food and personal care items. The Compton center opened in 1975 to serve the needs of families living in Compton, Carson, Lynwood and South Los Angeles.
"We are so grateful for Arron Afflalo and the Salvation Army," said Larry Jones, president and founder of Feed The Children. "Families in California will receive food because of this generous gift of kindness."

More info:
-- Feed The Children (linked here)
-- The Salvation Army of Southern California (linked here)

It's not even 1,500 words, this essay/pseudo story that Richard Hoffer has cobbled together for the current issue of Sports Illustrated on Dodgers Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully (linked here) that arrived in subscriber mailboxes today.

Nor is there any news angle to the fact that the 80-year-old's contract runs out after this year, and there's no guarantee he'll be back.

Why do the story then? Why not, was the apparent answer.

This is a piece that simply says something most of us who've grown up in L.A. have already come to embrace: In Vin, veritas. And that's the headline they went with.

The rest, it's simply a poem written to Vin's 50 years in Southern California.

"In a city that is predicated on transience, that celebrates change so famously, there is little room for local institutions. Who would want to do something, the same one thing, for half a century? Somebody without ambition, that's who. Or without the talent to skip town altogether and go national. ... But here's Vin Scully. ... It's gotten to the point, the man having stitched together all those seasons, all by himself, that when you say Dodgers, you really mean Vin Scully. Who else?"

It eventually leads to this paragraph:

"Scully has made a life for himself, and for some millions of listeners, exploring the tension between the mundane and the heroic, maintaining a dignified presence all the while, no rooting for him, no consorting with players, knowing just what to say and when to shut up. In his mind, he's the host who welcomes you to the party, takes your coat, makes introductions and then stands apart to moderate the chatter. It's his voice alone that's been floating out over this impossible sprawl, 50 years, gathering everyone under the net, a couple of hours a night, enforcing a community of shared excitement, or puzzlement, or disappointment, Azusa to Temecula."

And now, Jeff Kent can listen to him while he sits on the DL, awaiting to find out if he's the next star to come and go from L.A.

The story caused us to wander the SI Vault to find out how many other stories had been done on Scully in the past (a link here to the search). There are 41 story references, plus this SI WIKI mini bio (linked here).

The latest potential ugly incident involving a broken maple bat came during Sunday's Dodgers-Diamondbacks game in Arizona on ESPN -- when Tony Clark's stick broke in two as he hit a ground ball up the middle, and it nearly speared Dodgers pitcher Derek Lowe on the mound. The result was somehow a double play as the Dodgers had an 8-0 lead in the fifth inning of a game otherwise over.
But the reaction Lowe had on the replay, of relief and shock about what happened, provided more than enough than whatever ESPN's Jon Miller or Joe Morgan could have added.
Yet, they tried.

"That was dangerous 'cause that bat stuck in the ground," Morgan noticed, then circling it on the telestrator as it stood up like a spike beyond the pitcher's mound as a D'backs ballboy came out to unwedge it.
Uh, it was dangerous 'cause it almost stuck in Lowe's back, actually. The ball and the bat came at Lowe at the same speed. The ball went to his right; the bat to his left. Lowe had to pirouette on the mound, covering his head with his left hand, in hopes of having it miss him.

"It's a lethal weapon right there," said Miller.
"That's gotta be frightening," Miller said a few moments later as the replay was shown of Lowe blowing a breath of relief, which made Morgan actually chuckle.