April 2009 Archives

Before May officially strikes, we may have more baseball books for you to consider, even as we've done our best to give the top 30 we came across during the month of April:

The book: "2009 Who's Who in Baseball" (94th edition, byWho's Who in Baseball Magazine, Co., $9.95, edited by Pete Palmer) is listed on Amazon.com. Kinda. The latest information says "Currently unavailable: We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock." Because it sells out so fast? Maybe. For those of us old enough to have grown up reading this as really the only pre-Internet resource of information when it came to anything MLB related for stats, bios, etc. Rather than us trying to explain it, here's an Amazon.com review from Steven A. Peterson of Hershey, Penn., (born in Kewanee, Ill.: "I've been buying -- and loving -- these little volumes since the 1960s (I think I still have the 1964 book somewhere in my library). To get ready for the new baseball season, this jam-packed book of facts and figures is a great resource as you prepare to watch the games of the new year unfold. The concept is simple: list players with their batting and pitching statistics back to their first entry into professional baseball. The first entry is Bobby Abreu. 241 home runs, 1084 RBIs, .300 life time batting average. First played in the big leagues in 1997 (Houston). Last entry -- Joel Zumaya (batters are first and pitchers second in the book). Lifetime record is 8-8 with a 2.76 ERA. One of my favorite juxtapositions. . . On pages 170-171, we have Frank Thomas, followed immediately by Jim Thome. Fascinating comparison. Thomas: 8199 at bats, 2468 hits, 495 doubles, 521 home runs, 1704 RBIs. Thome: 7344 at bats, 2048 hits, 397 doubles, 541 home runs, 1488 RBIs. And that's part of the fun of this book. Comparing players, trying to develop your ratings of who are the best and who remain the rest. . . . So, if you enjoy baseball statistics and want the basics of who has done what with their careers, this is a portable and useful volume. Highly recommended!" One more quick review from Donald B. Harris of Williamsburg, Va.: "(It is) an unpretentious excellent source for any baseball lover ... After searching around and buying nerdy books which were laden with statistics but had no humanity, I found this one. Handy size, easy to navigate. A great resource for any serious baseball fan."

The book: "A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez" by Selena Roberts (Harper Collins, 272 pages, $26.99): Set for release on May 12, but now moved up to this Monday, the "stalker" Roberts (according to A-Rod) had excerpts already used it as an explosive Sports Illustrated issue recently, and more of it came out in a New York Daily News story on Wednesday (linked here) -- use of steroids as a member of the Yankees, and also as a teenager. From the book blurb on the jacket: "Rumoured to be on the verge of a personal and professional collapse so profound it would rate as one of the most dramatic falls in major league history. Through exhaustive reporting and interviews, Roberts will detail A-Rod as a plunge-in-progress, a once-in-a-generation baseball talent tortured by an internal struggle between the polished family man he wants to be and the unabashed hedonist he has become. The storyline will include his dalliances with strippers, infatuation with Madonna, details of his record-breaking $315-million contract, shady real estate empire and further evidence of steroid use, but will also tunnel deeper into his behavior. Roberts will reveal the root of Alex's identity crisis - the night his father abandoned him - and, in so doing, answer the question: who is the real A-Rod?"

The book: "Bert Sugar's Baseball Hall of Fame: A Living History of America's Greatest Game" by Bert Randolph Sugar (Running Press, 272 pages, $35). Due out in June, this one arrives in time for the Baseball Hall of Fame's 70th anniversary of its first induction class -- it opened its doors on Monday, July 12, 1939. Since then it has had three major expansions, including a recent $20 million renovation. "To get a better sense of the Hall of Fame you would have to be in Cooperstown," says Bob Costas in his endorsement quote.

The book: "The Making of a Hitter" by Jack Perconte (forward by Mike Scioscia) (Second Base Publishing, 181 pages, $19.95): You remember Perconte, right (stats linked here)? A 16th-round draft choice by the Dodgers in '76. Made the big leagues in '80. Hit .231 in 22 games (32 at bats over two seasons) before he was traded to Cleveland, then Seattle, then the Chiago White Sox. Actually played a full season with the Mariners in 1984 and hit .294 with 180 hits (third in the AL with 152 singles), 29 stolen bases ... OK, marginal at best. So why not start a hitting academy and then publish a book that teaches kids at different levels how to tan the horsehide. Well, the Jack Perconte Sports Academy in Naperville, Ill., is now the Centerfield Sports Academy (linked here), and Perconte has this book, with a rather scruffy photo of himself on the back page and throughout the publication, with the slogan: "Remember, practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect." Perfect. He says in the intro: "Even though I was fortuante to have played in the major leagues for a few years it was surprising how little I really knew about the fundamentals until I began to teach ... I did feel qualified to teach because at one time or another I did about everything wrong fundamentally as a hitter." Isn't that how it always works out? We don't doubt Perconte's intentions, but somehow this comes off as something Kenny Powers would do in "Eastbound & Down" for HBO. Without the cursing. Since, at the top of the cover, it says it's by "Jack Perconte, former major leaguer."

The book: "Sweet Spot: 125 years of Baseball and the Louisville Slugger," by David Magee and Philip Shirley (forward by Ken Griffey Jr.) (Triumph Books, 182 pages, $27.95). At a time when bats only make news when they break and nearly injury players on the field, this anniversary celebration of the biggest lumber company for the sport is filled with archived photos that you'd only find in the Hillerich and Bradsby Co.'s library. The history covered includes Babe Ruth and his R43 model, which he notched after each homer in 1927, the first bat crafted by Bud Hillerich for pro player Pete Browning in 1884, to bats used by Dustin Pedroia and Derek Jeter today. Transcripts of personal interviews by those who used the company's bat include Steve Garvey, Dusty Baker, Tony Gwynn, Mickey Mantle, Pee Wee Reese, Ted Williams, Robin Yount and George Brett. The "powerized' factory and museum in Louisville, Ky., still attracts nearly a quarter million visitors a year, showing how the company started as a family business, built its tradition and faced the challenges posed by aluminum bats.

The book: "No Girls In The Clubhouse: The Exclusion of Women from Baseball" by Marilyn Cohen (McFarland, 228 pages, $35), which looks at how women are still striking out in the world of baseball -- from umps to commentators to ... players. Even as the author, a professor of sociology and urban studies at Saint Peter's College, reminds us of when teenaged girl Jackie Mitchell once struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition. Also read a review of this on Ron Kaplan's website (linked here)

Also be on the lookout for: "Pull Up A Chair: The Vin Scully Story" by Curt Smith (due out at the end of this month; we have mention of it linked here) as well as "Vin Scully: I Saw It On the Radio," a tribute book compiled by Rich Wolfe (Lone Wolfe Press), where 120 people -- fellow broadcasters, players, fans, and others, ranging from John Wooden, Roger Owens, Eric Karros, Jon Miller, Dick Enberg, Ralph Branca and Yogi Berra, have something to say about how Scully impacted their life. The self-published book has been spotted in Ralphs supermarkets and has its own website (www.vinscullybook.com)

Paul Wellman/The Santa Barbara Independent
Senator Tony Strickland (in white) and goes up against Santa Barbara radio DJ Adam Lundquist in a one-on-one battle last month.

Tony Strickland once scored 47 points in a game when he was at Whitter College in 1992, a 6-foot-5 power forward who threw his weight around and had a good quick first step to go along with a nice outside jumper.

Then his career went another way.

He's now Califoria State Senator Tony Strickland (R-Thousand Oaks), serving the 19th district and assistant minority leader. But he'll make his pro basketball debut. Finally.

The Los Angeles Lightning of the International Basketball League (linked here) has Strickland on the roster for Saturday's game at Gilbert Sports Arena on the Cal Lutheran campus for their 7 p.m. game against the Edmonton Energy. It's the first two home games of the season for the Lightning, in their second year of existence.

On Strickland's official website (linked here) there is plenty about his being vice president of GreenWave Energy Solutions LLC, which is trying to harness ocean water as a natural way to power the planet. This co-autored Senate Bill 619, which provides support for funding Santa Barbara County's Lower Mission Creek flood control project, is rolling through the process. And his other endeavors in trying to find funding for vital programs like healthcare, education, and transportation by creating jobs.

But there's nothing about his basketball ability.

The 39-year-old played at Whitter from 1990-92, averaging 15 points and 12 rebounds in two seasons. In his final home game with the Poets, he poured in 47 points and set a school record with 22 field goals.

Lightning owner Mark Harwell, a friend of Strickland, said he invited the legislator to play because of his ability, not as a publicity stunt.

"Tony's a great athlete and will surprise a lot of people," said Harwell. "He can still play and he can dunk. If this was a publicity stunt, we would have signed a 5-7 bald guy with a pot belly."

Strickland says of his game: "I'm strong fundamentally and I just like to win. I'm very competitive. ... I'm living a dream. I'm really excited and this a great opportunity to play with great basketball players who played in the NBA."

The Lightning roster includes former NBA and college players such as Toby Bailey, Byron Russell and Lamond Murray.

The Sacramento Bee

Just in case you'd like the whole list of reviews on one monster link:

Day 30: "Parables From The Diamond: Meditations for Men on Baseball & Life" by Phil Christopher and Glenn Dromgoole (linked here)

Day 29: "Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball from Itself" by Michael Shapiro (linked here)

Day 28: "Straw: Finding My Way" by Darryl Strawberry (with John Strausbaugh) (linked here)

Day 27: "After Many a Summer: The Passing of the Giants and Dodgers and a Golden Age in New York Baseball" by Robert E. Murphy (linked here)

Day 26: "Heart of the Game: Life, Death and Mercy in Minor League America" by S.L. Price (linked here)

Day 25: "George: The Poor Little Rich Boy Who Built the Yankee Empire" by Peter Golenbock (linked here)

Day 24: "The Complete Game: Reflections on Baseball, Pitching and Life on the Mound" by Ron Darling (linked here)

Day 23: "Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee" by Allen Barra (linked here)

Day 22: "It Was Never About the Babe: How the Boston Red Sox Overcame Decades of Mismanagement and Racism and Built a Dynasty" by Jerry M. Gutlon (linked here)

Day 21: "Tony LaRussa: Man on a Mission" by Bob Rains, forward by Joe Buck (linked here)

Day 20: "The Rocket That Fell To Earth: Roger Clemens and the Rage for Baseball Immortality" by Jeff Pearlman (along with "American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America's Pastime" By Teri Thompson, Nathaniel Vinton, Michael O'Keeffe, and Christian Red of the New York Daily News) (linked here)

Day 19: "The Unwritten Rules of Baseball: The Etiquette, Conventional Wisdom and Axiomatic Codes of Our National Pasttime" by Paul Dickson (as well as Dickson's updated and third edition of "The Dickson Baseball Dictionary: The Revised, Expanded and Now-Definitive Work on the Language of Baseball") (linked here)

Day 18: "Baseball Prospectus: The Essential Guide to the 2009 Baseball Season" edited by Steven Goldman, Nate Silver and Christina Kahrl, forward by Keith Olbermann (linked here)

Day 17: "Baseball and the Baby Boomer: A History, Commentary and Memoir" by Talmage Boston (linked here)

Day 16: "Catcher: How The Man behind the Plate Became an American Folk Hero" by Peter Morris (linked here)

Day 15: "This Day In Baseball: A Day-By-Day Record of the Events that Shaped the Game" by David Nemec and Scott Flatow and "Dodgers Journal: Year by Year & Day by Day with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers since 1884" by John Snyder (linked here)

Day 14: "The Baseball Talmud: The Definitive Position-by-Position Ranking of Baseball's Chosen Players" by Howard Megdal (linked here)

Day 13: "Odd Man Out: A Year on the Mound with a Minor League Misfit" by Matt McCarthy (linked here)

Day 12: "100 Things Dodgers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die" by Jon Weisman (linked here)

Day 11: "Bob Feller's Little Blue Book of Baseball Wisdom" by Bob Feller (linked here)

Day 10: "Splinters" by Rex Hudler (linked here)

Day 9: "The Corporal Was a Pitcher: The Courage of Lou Brissie" by Ira Berkow (linked here)

Day 8: "As They See 'Em: A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires" by Bruce Weber (linked here)

Day 7: "Safe at Home: Confessions of a Baseball Fanatic" by Alyssa Milano and "Confessions of a She-Fan: The Course of True Love with the New York Yankees" by Jane Heller (linked here)

Day 6: "Dodgers Past & Present" by Steven Travers (linked here)

Day 5: "The Psycho 100: Baseball's Most Outrageous Moments" by Steve "Psycho" Lyons (linked here)

Day 4: "Becoming Manny: Inside the Life of Baseball's Most Enigmatic Slugger" by Jean Rhodes and Shawn Boburg (authorized by Manny Raminez) (linked here)

Day 3: "The Yankee Years" by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci (linked here)

Day 2: "Forever Blue: The True Story of Walter O'Malley, Baseball's Most Controversial Owner, and the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles" by Michael D'Antonio (linked here)

Day 1: "Under The March Sun: The Story of Spring Training" by Charles Fountain (linked here)

Which one do you need for your reading room?

The story that continues to be off our radar as much as possible, because it's just another headache but some make it much bigger than it has to be:

From The Associated Press:

Without a last-minute agreement, the NFL Network might be unavailable on Comcast Corp.'s cable TV systems beginning Friday.

Comcast and the National Football League are in a court battle over Comcast's decision to put the NFL-owned channel in a premium sports tier rather than in a lesser-priced service package that has more viewers.

The agreement under which Comcast carries the NFL Network was due to expire at 11:59 p.m. Thursday. Comcast said it would be willing to carry the channel under
the same terms while the litigation goes on, but the NFL hasn't accepted the offer. NFL Network spokesman Dennis Johnson said the network is willing to talk. But without an agreement or extension, Comcast expected to pull the plug at midnight.

The book: "Parables From The Diamond: Meditations for Men on Baseball & Life"

The authors: Phil Christopher and Glenn Dromgoole

How to find it: Bright Day Press, 108 pages, $9.95.

Where we'd go looking for it: Amazon has it (linked here).

The scoop: A search of book titles will turn up some that offer "Parables From" pop culture, nature, the "back side" ... even the fishin' hole series is pretty popular.

"Parables From The Diamond" is something you could read in one 20-minute sitting. But don't. You won't get the most out of it that way.

There are 50 short essays about something that happens in baseball, and how it parallels something in life. Maybe it's best just to read one each day, think about it, learn from it, and move on to the next.

Some of these things may seem obvious, but they're nothing you've really contemplated past a few minutes of pondering. Others are obvious, and they've never really occured to you.

The combination of Dromgoole (a journalist for more than 30 years) and Christopher (a Baptist minister and paster), both in Abilene, Texas, give each passage some great brevity and soul that get to the heart of the message quickly and effectively.

If there's one book to end this series on -- knowing that it will, in fact, stretch the series over another month -- we pick this one.

One quick passage: From "A Broken Bat Still Has Value"

Kids today play with aluminum bats, but when we were kids the bats we used were wooden. Invariably, if used long enough, bats would break.

Do you have a broken bat that still has some life left in it? How can you help someone else pick up the pieces and start again?

How it goes down in the scorebook: A keeper.

The Lake Elsinore Storm already offers a "Fat Tuesday" promotion each week -- a $13 ticket allows the holder to "enjoy the All-U-Can Eat Belly Buster food specials." Think Dodgers' right-field pavilion, but much cheaper.

The trick is, of course, how much can the holder hold it in?

Considering the upcoming Tuesday falls on Cinco de Mayo, the Padres' Single-A affiliate has what you may consider to be an added bonus -- The first 250 fans also receive free the Subtle Butt flatulence patch.

It is what you think it is.

"Made of activated carbon fabric, each disposable 3.25" square shield is held onto the inside of underwear with two self-adhesive strips," according to the information provided on the Storm's website blog (linked here). "Subtle Butt effectively filters flatulence, absorbing and neutralizing its odor."

"I am confident that this will help fans get through the Seventh-Inning Stench," says Kim Leone Olenicoff, President of Irvine-based The Pond Inc., maker of Subtle Butt. "And I'm not only the President, but a satisfied customer."

Adds Storm assistant GM Allan Benavides: "This will really help people out. I know personally when I eat all that I can, I have problems with gas emissions."

In all fairness, Subtle Butt is offered each Tuesday free to the first 250 who stream through the entrance gates. Otherwise, they run $9.95 for a package of five (find 'em here)

So, by all means, gas up a Storm after a big Mexican lunch, if you need to. Oh, and you will need to.

This Tuesday's opponent: Your Lancaster JetHawks. Need any more incentive to make the drive South to this Mistake by the Lake?

The Storm, by the way, is a team that once had a Scientologist Night a few years ago and gave away Tom Cruise bobble-chairs -- yes, the Cruiser jumping off the sofa on the "Oprah" show:

The JetHawks' 4-3 win in the bottom of the ninth this afternoon, securing two of the three games in the series against the talent-filled San Jose Giants (story linked here), sent the kids home much happier than they had been hours earlier when some, in line to use the restroom, had to listen to my play-by-play call in the third inning.

You get what you pay for in Single-A baseball. Sometimes, it's Rookie League talent.

A quick review: The inning went somewhat quickly, but both teams scored in their half of the frame -- the Giants, on a home run, so when the audio comes through (for those who missed it) they'll get to hear what I believe is the most unique home run call ever made in the history of baseball broadcasting.

Not to brag or anything....

Unique. Not best. And not to give it all away, but it's punctuated by the most trite phrase in all of sportscasting: "HOW DOOO YOU DO!"

Stay tuned. The experience will be documented -- with audio clips and photos -- in Friday's editions.

The book: "Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball from Itself"

The author: Michael Shapiro

How to find it: Henry Holt/Times Books, 320 pages, $25

Where we'd go looking for it: It's on Amazon (linked here) and Barnes and Noble (linked here).

The scoop: We were intrigued by the content by a review of the book we saw from Allen Barra in the Daily News back in late March.

Barra wrote: "(The book) is based on a somewhat dubious premise, namely that half a century ago, major league baseball was on the verge of a crisis and that somehow this was exemplified by the almost yearly success of the New York Yankees." Barra points out that the Yankees won only two World Series between 1954 and 1960, but were dominant to that point.

"Fortunately one doesn't have to accept this theme to enjoy the book," Barra adds.

Unfortunately, we waited this long, but still haven't had the opportunty to read it. It's not due in book stores until May and we have waited all month for a review copy, but none has arrived ...

Shapiro, who did "The Last Good Season" about the Brooklyn Dodgers, goes into the life and times of Rickey, the Dodgers' co-owner and general manager who was trying to start a third major league, the Continental League.

How it goes down in the scorebook: Incomplete. On our end. We apologize. But that happens in baseball. You don't get a hit everytime up.

The JetHawks have issued a press release for those who need more info about my appearance as a play-by-play man on today's broadcast (linked here).

The plan is to do color analysis on the second inning and then jump into play-by-play for the third, all thanks to the cooperation of Jeff Lasky, the true voice of the JetHawks, who gets paid the same whether I'm taking his calls away or not.

A couple of months ago, we did a feature story on Jeff Lasky, the 28-year-old play-by-play voice of the Single-A Lancaster JetHawks (linked here).

Wednesday afternoon, Lasky returns the favor. Sorta.

He's offered me the opportunity to do an inning of play-by-play during the team's game against the San Jose Giants. I've ridiculously taken him up on it, and the result will be the media column for Friday's newspaper and perhaps an audio clip that could be used against me by any broadcaster who I've wronged in the last 20-plus years of writing the media column.

(When I told Dodgers broadcaster Charley Steiner about this endeavor, his immediate response: "Can I critique you?" Sure, if you can hear the game from San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon ...)

Oh, you can?

Barring any unforseen technical difficulties -- I plan to stay in Lancaster tonight so I don't get a late wake-up call and get stuck in traffic driving out to the desert on Wednesday morning -- you can hear the call of the game live on the JetHawks' flagship station, Magic 1340-AM (linked here). Or, even easier, listen on the audio stream from the team website (linked here). Go to the "Listen Live" link.

It's an 11 a.m. first-pitch, the end of a seven-game homestand.

There will also be a MP3 version of the call on Friday's blog to go with the media column.

Listen, and learn, friends. Listen, to find out what's happening in the game. And learn from my mistakes.

Another Dodgers-Giants angle: A player of high stature who played for each team, at one point and another in his fractured career:

The book: "Straw: Finding My Way"

The author: Darryl Strawberry (with John Strausbaugh)

How to find it: Ecco Books, 256 pages, $26.99

Where we'd go looking for it: Amazon has it (linked here) and here it is on the book publisher's site (linked here).

The scoop: The book, scheduled for release today, is pretty straight forward: Darryl Strawberry was a very, very good baseball player who, according to the HarperCollins press notes, led the 1986 Mets to "108 victories with Strawberry scoring 27 home runs."

Er, OK.... At least mention his appearance on "The Simpsons" in 1992 ... which made him cry. Maybe it's best to leave that one alone.

We interrupt this review with a quote: "Now this is decadent. And I've been to Miami with Darryl Strawberry." -- Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), on the April 23, '09 episode of the NBC show "30 Rock," in a nightclub with Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) with lots of women and drinking.

Review continued: The revelation as to why Strawberry ended up with a fractured finish go back to his upbringing -- and abusive, alcoholic father; an immaturity in dealing with fame, especially in New York with a team that liked to party ... and then a couple of bouts with cancer that kind of made him see the light, especially after some prison time, rehab and finding God.

The early part of the book circles to his father's treatment of him and the family early on.

"I'm not blaming him for the all the mistakes and stupid decisions I made, or for the pain and sorrow I caused myself and others," Strawberry writes in the introduction. "I take full responsibility for everything I have ever done. I know 'My father beat me' is a cliched excuse for bad behavior. I'm not using it as an excuse. There are no excuses. There are only explanations."

From today's USA Today (linked here), with the moral of the story: Don't trust anyone on the phone who sounds like Hal Holbrook:

Somebody posing as a Washington Post reporter convinced ESPN on Monday that one of the Washington Capitals' star players had been suspended for Tuesday's decisive Eastern Conference playoff Game 7 against the New York Rangers.

"I was on my way to the rink this morning and my buddy called me and was a little upset I was missing Game 7," said Capitals defenseman Mike Green, a finalist for the Norris Trophy given to the NHL's top defenseman.

"I had no idea what for. It kind of caught me off guard."

ESPN SportsCenter hosts Josh Elliot and Hannah Storm relayed that Green and teammate Donald Brashear were suspended under a "Breaking News" banner Monday at 9:52 a.m.

Within a half hour, ESPN retracted the story.

"Our news desk received the call from someone representing themselves as a Washington Post reporter," ESPN spokesman Dan Quinn said.

"We didn't follow our own fact-checking procedures and mistakenly reported the story.

"We apologize for the error."

Part of the fib wound up being true.

Brashear was suspended later Monday for six games for two on-ice incidents during the Caps' 5-3 victory in Game 6.

Your pick: The most ridiculous commercial you've seen pop up lately during a sports program has been:

A) Frank Thomas, for ZizZazz Explosive Energy Mix:

What we know: Thomas has a lot of muscles. Still. But no big-league team wants him. Maybe he's just too hyped up. The Website also shows Manny Pacquio, Aaron Rowand and Archie Griffin involved in the marketing of this. Plus Paris Hilton. And singer Nelly and actor Jesse McCartney are listed as co-owners of the company. But Big Hurt? This hurts to watch.

B) Larry Zbyszko, aka "The Living Legend,"for Morphoplex Massive:

What we know: It's $89.95 a 120-capsule bottle that'll only last you a month. We can't be sure why Zbyszko is a legend, other than having two "z"s and a "y" in his name. The fact he's screaming about athletes who've died and ended up in a grave yard is a classy way to open a sales pitch. It's as if he's got the secret to getting bigger and stronger and quicker and more legal. Be careful what you promise.

C) Magic Johnson for either San Manuel Casino, Rent-A-Center, Jackson Hewitt Tax Prep or T-Mobile (with Julius Erving and Charles Barkley):

What we know: Magic's people can't be far from talking to Cash4Gold, willing to have someone yank teeth out of his head so he can put it in an envelope and mail it off to some prospectors somewhere up near San Francisco.

He could align himself with the Dakota Magic Casino in Hankintown, North Dakota, with plenty of RV parking (linked here), handing out ShamWows, Snuggie blankets and Amish rolling electric fireplaces to all customers who hit $20 on the big wheel.

Does any of that creep you out as much as last year's NBA playoff promo that he did with Larry Bird?

The Associated Press

Del Mar will reduce its schedule to five days a week, dropping most Monday programs because of the economy when the seaside track opens its 70th season in July.

Track officials said Monday that racing will be staged Wednesdays through Sundays from July 22-Sept. 9. The only Monday races will be on Labor Day.

It's the first time since 1945 the track won't race six days a week. The move reduces the meeting from its usual 43 days to 37.

"There's a pinch on everyone due to the economy; there's a pinch on the number of racehorses available in the state," Del Mar president Joe Harper said. "Racing folks have been talking about racing less and presenting a better product because of it for some time now."

The track plans to add one additional race to its cards on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Under consideration are Wednesday promotions that would offer free admission and reduced food and drink prices.

Del Mar racing secretary Tom Robbins said it had become harder to fill racing cards.

"As a result of this change, I think our fans will see larger fields and better cards across the board," he said.

California's horse population has declined recently, while the number of mares bred in the state and the live-foal crop are both down over the last 10 years, Robbins said. The economic downturn has reduced discretionary spending for claiming and buying thoroughbreds.

Del Mar began its Wednesday through Monday schedule in 1973, when California approved Sunday racing. The track located north of San Diego was founded by Bing Crosby in 1937.

As the Dodgers and Giants fight it out again, this time in San Francisco, we revisit the team's move West from New York more than 50 years ago with ...

The book: "After Many a Summer: The Passing of the Giants and Dodgers and a Golden Age in New York Baseball"

The author: Robert E. Murphy

How to find it: Union Square Press, 432 pages, $24.95

Where we'd go looking for it: Amazon has it (linked here)

The scoop: Remember that book by Michael D'Antonio called "Forever Blue" that we reviewed earlier this month (linked here and linked here and even more linked here)?

Here's the consenting opinion. Or, the prevailing opinion that still lingers in New York from those with abandonment issues.

Murphy's bio: He lives in Brooklyn. He's a senior writer for "The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge." Essentially, he knows his Dodgers and New York Giants background.

From just the bookjacket blurb, Murphy says he'll reveal: "How legendary power-broker Robert Moses, who has received much of the blame for the team's departure, actually did more to keep them in New York than is commonly believed." And: "How the two owners (Walter O'Malley and Horace Stoneham) carried out secret talks with California officials even while insisting that they had not decided to leave New York."

In the introduction, Murphy admits he lived within walking distance of Ebbets Field, how his brother John and sister Mary took him to games. "It was wonderful to sit among all those other people who loved the Dodgers," he wrote. "... Baseball in New York City, where the modern game had developed, gripped a six-and-a-half-year-old boy's life in the spring of 1956." He was that kid.

The book: "Heart of the Game: Life, Death and Mercy in Minor League America"

The author: S.L. Price

How to find it: Ecco, 320 pages, $24.99

Where we'd go looking for it: Amazon has it (linked here).

The scoop: The excerpted part in the April 20 issue of Sports Illustrated -- because Price is an esteemed SI senior writer since 1994 -- doesn't do this book justice, and may confuse the reader as to what the intent of the project really is.

We aren't out looking for more reminders about what kind of damage a pitched ball can do to a batter. But this is what we get iin SI -- Ray Chapman, Tony Conigliaro, Dickie Thon. ... Serious injuries. Death, in the first case. Add to that the story that came out over the weekend about the high school player who died from being hit by a pitch (linked here).

Surprisingly, no pro player on any level has been killed by a batted ball. Of the 76 deaths caused in the manner -- five of which were a batter killed by his own foul tip -- all were in amateur games, with kids as young as 6.

But there's the story of Mike Coolbaugh, the minor league first-base coach killed by a batted ball in 2007, which led to all base coaches wearing protective helmets (whether Larry Bowa likes it or not). Price's book is really connecting the Coolbaugh story to the one of Tino Sanchez, the journeyman infielder who hit the foul ball on July 22, 2007 in Arkansas, resulting in his coach's death.

Price weaves the two families together, in how they shared in the minor triumphs but most-times struggle in a career through baseball. Then this dark day brought them to together -- luckily, as Price points out, "the moment itself has slipped past the clutch of modern experience. No television camera captured the ball hitting the coach; no team cameras focused on Coolbaugh as he was struck or falling. Despite the prevalence of cell phone photography and portable recorders and the Internet's appetite for every recorded event, no Zapruder will surface with footage of the blow. It's as if, in that sudden erasure of noise just after, a kind hand consipred to wipe away any cheapening visuals, any reductive evidence of so public an accident." That extends to the official scorebook, by the way. Sanchez fouled the pitch off on a 3-2 count. The game was stopped. The at-bat was never recorded. So Sanchez's 2,267 career trips to the plate is one short of the one that ended his desire to play baseball.

The book: "George: The Poor Little Rich Boy Who Built the Yankee Empire"

The author: Peter Golenbock

How to find it: Wiley, John and Sons, 384 pages, $26.95

Where we'd go looking for it: Amazon has it (linked here). Barnes & Noble has it (linked here)

The scoop: If only to read up on what kind of stuff Joe Torre had to put up with during his days as the Yankees manager -- including the insertion of Derek Jeter as the opening day shortstop in 1996 over the Boss' objections -- then here's the latest, and probably last, book written on King George.

Granted, it's a lot of things that are rehashed a bit from previous books on Steinbrenner, including one last year we reviewed, "The Ballad of Billy and George: The Tempestuous Baseball Marriage of Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner" by Phil Pepe. Although that book isn't one of the 21 books that are in the bibliography of material on page 353.

Goldenbock's approach is almost with a language that tries to match Steinbrenner's rough and ready personna. Yet he also tries to put a more human side on the egomanical owner, something maybe other books or ESPN docudramas weren't so generous in trying to spin.

Michael Owen Baker/Daily News Staff Photographer

You try dragging a tape recorder and notepad into a locker room every night trying to interview Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Or, in this case, to a warehouse in Newbury Park, with Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali, Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan all within earshot.

(And, yes, that is Rodney Dangerfield trying to look disinterested in the background as well).

We tried, but Kareem, as expected, wouldn't cooperate. Which is understandable. This version of a Kareem action figure, which once appeared in the Hollywood Wax Museum, is about to be sold to the highest bidder in an auction on May 1. His days are numbered.

So, with that glazed-over look in his eyes, and painted-on smile, we tried to find out how he felt about the fact he could just be a conversation piece in someone's rumpus room in the very near future.

This Kareem didn't seem to have an opinion about it either way.

Meanwhile, you can check out the auction on www.profilesinhistory.com. Here's the lowdown on the Kareem figure:

There is an inherent danger in having ESPN do its 10 p.m. (OK, 1 a.m. if you have no clue where the West Coast lies) "SportsCenter" from across the street from Staples Center -- the ripe-for-riff-raff factor.

Like, a badass like Justin Timberlake , aka Jacques Grande from Mike Myers' nuclear, "The Love Guru," blowing in to promote ... himself, with the cool/dork look.

There's this YouTube clip (please, don't watch it, you'll only encourage him to check how many hits it has had ... this is just for-the-record purposes):

The book: "The Complete Game: Reflections on Baseball, Pitching and Life on the Mound"

The author: Ron Darling

How to find it: Knopf, 288 pages, $24.95

Where we'd go looking for it: Amazon has it (linked here)

The scoop: I got my first hint of Darling's ability to recall detail last October, when I talked to him about the 1988 Dodgers-Mets National League Championship Series -- where, as the ace of the New York staff, he was pinch running in the 12th inning of Game 4, then getting knocked around by the Dodger lineup in the decisive Game 7, where Orel Hershiser again grabbed the headlines, and Darling was left taking the loss.

"It was my total and utter disaster," Darling recalled. "You think that all athletes want to do is recount great moments in their careers, and the older we are the better we were.

"I'm haunted by that seventh game to this day. It's like a golfer who just had to hit a three-foot putt to make it to the U.S Open. Every pitcher wants to pitch in the seventh game of a series. But since I'm a guy who has spent much more of my life thinking about my struggles and failures than any great moments, this one won't go away.

While mulling over the future of Mark Sanchez, as anyone with a TV talking opionion gave in today's media column (linked here), consider these things to do in 10 minutes or less:

== Create a national internet sensation by almost exposing your breasts to anyone watching hockey on the Versus network (see below)

== Throw a Rubix cube off the Ventura County pier (note: must live within five minutes of the pier)

== Microwave a 25-pound turkey (as long as you don't really want to eat it).

== Drive through the Shell gas station car wash (minus the five minute wait by the guy ahead of you who can't figure out that the air blowers only work if they inch forward rather than stay in the wash bay).

== Destroy the future of an NFL franchise through the first-round draft pick.

Those employed by TV networks who seem to know everything about everything about this weekend's NFL draft (our story in today's paper linked here) can go on and on to fill the several hours of pre-draft shows leading up to Saturday's 1 p.m. start. Luckily, ESPN diverts to its coverage of the Nuggets-Hornets NBA playoff game (from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.), forcing viewers of pre-draft jabbering to go over to ESPN2 for awhile. Maybe that will confuse them enough once the thing starts up, they'll head over to the NFL Network -- presuming they have it on their system.

Or they go over to Fox and catch the Yankees-Red Sox game.

More stuff to throw out there:

Our regrets to Troy Polamalu and Larry Fitzgerald for having not only their fantasy football stock sinki faster than the Dow Jones but their medical staffs put on full 24-hour alert (as well as their lawyers) after it was announced this morning that the Pittsburgh Steelers safety and the Arizona Cardinals' receiver will co-host the cover of the Madden NFL 10 game set for distribution on Aug. 14.

For the first time in the 21-year history of the Madden NFL franchise, two athletes will be on the cover.

In other words, two will be taken down at the same time by the ... curse...

Plus, their wild hair makes them naturally photogentic. Right, Man-Ram?

"Larry Fitzgerald and Troy Polamalu are exemplary examples of the epic battle between offense and defense in the NFL," said senior product manager Anthony Stevenson in a press release. "Madden NFL 10 showcases the Fight For Every Yard, and nobody fights harder than Troy and Larry, making them the perfect athletes to grace the cover."

Plus, they faced each other in the last Super Bowl. It's newsworthy.

Fitzgerald will be the second athlete to have been featured on both the Madden NFL cover (Madden NFL 10) and NCAA Football cover (NCAA Football 2005) -- history buffs, do you know the first? It was Shaun Alexander.

About that Madden cover curse .... It's on Wikipedia (linked here). It must be true. Others believe it, too (linked here).

By Howard Fendrich
The Associated Press

For a guy who makes a living critiquing others -- created a cottage industry out of it, even -- Mel Kiper Jr. sounds a little thin-skinned when it comes to how others perceived him way back when.

Back before he became a first-name-suffices celebrity. Before the NFL draft felt like a made-for-TV event.

"When I started," Kiper recalled, words tumbling forth as he rocked in his chair during an interview with The Associated Press, "I had everybody telling me, 'You're crazy. You're wasting your time. It will amount to nothing.' I was, like, the point man for the draft to get ripped -- and about seven, eight years ago, I noticed that all those massive critics shut up."

This weekend marks the 25th anniversary of Kiper's 1984 debut on ESPN's NFL draft coverage, and while his no-time-to-breathe delivery, polarizing declarations, and puffy hair (his wife, Kim, cuts it) haven't changed all that much through the years, his relevance and popularity sure have.

The relevance and popularity of the draft itself have increased, too. The 1984 telecast drew a 0.6 rating; ESPN has averaged better than a 4.0 rating for its past five Day 1 draft shows. In 1984, there were 10 hours of live coverage; this weekend, there will be more than 16.

By Colin Fly
The Associated Press

MILWAUKEE -- University of Wisconsin-Whitewater head coach Lance Leipold apologized Thursday for his expletive-laced remarks and decision to bar student reporters after a scathing campus editorial.

"I'm passionate about our program and how it's perceived. The bad thing about it is my poor reaction and language," Leipold told The Associated Press by phone. "That's a huge mistake on my part. I've embarrassed our program and our university."

Leipold, who is preparing to coach his third year at one of the top Division III football programs in the nation that sits just south of the midpoint between Madison and Milwaukee (college site here), blistered a student editor with an expletive-laced rant after an editorial in the Royal Purple (linked here).

The article, titled "Spoiled athletes need reality check," discussed a campus incident in which a police officer was called to the weight room after three football players refused to provide student IDs to work out.

Leipold used multiple expletives and told an editor: "It's going to be (tough) to try to cover football next season."

He also said anyone affiliated with the student-run newspaper would not be allowed to call anyone with the football team without approval and that student reporters questions would go unanswered in the 2009 season, according to the Royal Purple story.

"The door is shut," Leipold said, according to the paper. "Go cover soccer ... I'm sure that will be fun."

Remember that strange report that Lisa Salters gave during the Jan. 1 Rose Bowl between USC and Penn State -- when she was noticably miffed that Nittany Lions coach/invalid Joe Paterno stiffed her on a pre-game interview? Go back and read it (at this link)

Everyone involved said to wait it out and see if anything would happen. There are ABC contracts vilolated there. Penn State could be fined as much as $10,000 for acting the fool. People had to pay for their mistakes, right? You can't let some cranky old coach skirt the rules when there's tons of money at stake to be made by other people here.

The Associated Press reported today that Rose Bowl officials -- at last -- say Penn State violated two media access agreements at this year's game.

Bowl officials, who met in Pasadena this week, said in a statement that the first violation occurred whenPaterno failed to give a pre-game interview to ABC broadcasters.

The second violation was for failing to open the locker room to media after the game. Penn State doesn't open its locker room after games at Beaver Stadium. But that's not how the Rose Bowl rolls.

Bowl officials said "appropriate responsive actions" were approved, but did not release details. Penn State officials deferred comment to bowl officials. A bowl spokeswoman said Thursday that all sides consider the issue closed.

As closed as the Nittany Lions' locker room doors, apparently.

The Associated Press

ESPN.com's Mike Fish posted the latest compelling extended story (linked here) about the life and times of Lenny Dykstra, living in Wayne Gretzky's former Sherwood Country Club mansion (and unable to sell it), struggling to pay bills on his high-end magazine, but pushing ahead as only you'd expect from the take-no-crap approach by the former big-leaguer and car-wash owner trying to stay afloat in the West Valley.

As Dykstra talks about shuttling around out of the Camarillo Airport to his latest money-making adventure, there are some telling excerpts worth throwing out here:

Speaking of Yogi Berra ... we did in today's "Daily Dread" about him helping advance a safer bat among major-league baseball players ...

The book: "Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee"

The author: Allen Barra

How to find it: W.W. Norton & Co., 480 pages, $27.95

Where we'd go looking for it: Amazon has it (linked here) as does Barnes & Noble (linked here)

The scoop: Not to be confused with:
= "Yogi: The Life and Times of An American Original" by Carlo DeVito (2008, linked here).
= Or "You Can Observe A Lot By Watching: From What I've Learned About Teamwork from the Yankees and Life," by Berra, with Dave Kaplan (2008, linked here).
= Or "The Yogi Book : I Really Didn't Say Everything I Said" by Berra in 1998.
= Or "What Time Is It? You Mean Now?: Advice for Life from the Zennest Master of Them All" by Berra and Kaplan, in 2003.
= Or "The Wit and Wisdom of Yogi Berra" by Phil Pepe in 2002.
= Or "When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It!: Inspiration and Wisdom From One of Baseball's Greatest Heroes" by Berra, again with Kaplan, in 2002.
= Or "Ten Rings: My Championship Seasons" by Berra, yes, again with Kaplan, in 2005.
= Or "Yogi Berra: An American Original" by the New York Daily News in 2001.
= Or "Yogi: It Ain't Over" by Berra and Tom Horton in 1990.
= Or even "Yogi Was Up with a Guy on Third ... Hall of Famers Recall Their Favorite Baseball Games Ever" by Maureen Mullen and includes a chapter on Berra recalling a Don Larson's 1956 World Series perfect game, and includes a photo of Berra on the cover.

No, what makes Barra-on-Berra work where the others took some detours -- when there's a fork in the road, they took it -- is endorsements, first of all, from Bob Costas, Jim Bouton and "Clemente" author David Maraniss. With that, you know it's got a stamp of approval.

Mark Sanchez has flushed himself out of the pocket and pocketed some nice spare chance by bagging a cover spot on the EA Sports NCAA Football '10 video game, which comes out July 14.

Well, at least Sanchez is one of four winners in this beauty contest.

He made the PSP (PlayStation®Portable) version of the game. Michael Crabtree, the former Texas Tech receiver, has the prime spot on the Xbox 360 cover. Somehow, former Utah QB Brian Johnson landed the Playstation3 cover. And then former Texas DE Brian Orakpo made it on PlayStation2.

You think they'd offer Sanchez the PlayStation1 cover? Atari?

From the EA press release:

"NCAA Football 10 also introduces TeamBuilder, an all-new, online create-a-school feature that will enhance the user's ability to produce personalized content. With the capability to upload logos and numerous customization options for uniforms, fields, rosters, and much more, TeamBuilder gives users the opportunity to design completely original teams with infinite possibilities."

Such as, putting Sanchez back in the USC offense a tight end to help Aaron Corp call plays in 2009.

A report on SportingNews.com and ProFootballTalk.com say that Percy Harvin was supposed to be on the Xbox 360 cover, but the Florida wide receiver was dropped when EA was skiddish over him allegedly testing positive for marijuana at the NFL scouting combine.

Meanwhile ...

Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press/AP Photo

If you saw the video of Tuesday night's latest MLB maple bat victim -- umpire Kerwin Danley, attended to on the field after a piece of the Rangers' Hank Blalock broke and struck him in the sixth inning of Texas' game in Toronto, it's another near-miss-reminder of the ridiculous approach that the game has taken to this problem.

Sure, they collected a bunch of broken bats last season -- more than 2,200 broken bats were collected during a 2 1/2-month span, and 750 of them were broken in multiple pieces. Then a special committe sat down with the USDA's forest products laboratory to creat new guidelines for a safer grade of wood used in bats. (story linked here)

And here's what we've got to show for it. Again.

It's too bad all sporting events on Wednesday couldn't have been played outdoors on Earth Day... Yes, even the NBA and NHL playoffs.

Some scenes from the day in sports that may help keep you grounded:

AP Photo/Jeff Chiu
Chris Andrews, chief of public programs and director of the Steinhart Aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences, holds up Balthazar, a red-tail boa constrictor, while throwing out the ceremonial first pitch to celebrate Earth Day before the Padres played the Giants in San Francisco.

It's the Wilson Staff Eco-Carry golf bag -- the first on the market made with 100 percent recycled material, from reused plastic bottles.

They call it GreenPlus® fabric, made from the equivalent of 12 plastic gallon bottles, similar to two-liter soda bottles. The bottles are crushed into plastic flakes, which are then transformed into a stable fiber through de-polymerization and re-polymerization. Then the fibers are woven into a filament yarn. The process also reduces the release of carbon dioxide by 70 percent as compared to normal polyester production that can be harmful to the environment.

Its lightweight (3.7 pounds) and durable, with the ergonomic hip pad. And, it's green.

Suggested list price: $129.99. Find it at wilsonstaff.com (linked here)

Now, what to use on the course?

== Recycled balls work for us (linked here).

== How about a ball the disegrates 24 hours after it lands in the water? Think about what happens to golfballs when you're on vacation and hitting them off the mat on a cruise ship. OK, a bit of an extreme, but you'd feel better that you're not polluting the ocean if you used the EcoGolf Water Soluble golf ball (linked here).

== We like tees, ball markers and divot repair products made from surpluss wheat here at GreenByDesign.com (linked here) in Nebraska, guaranteed to return to the Earth in 90 days.

== Zero Friction golf tees, biodegradable, are among our favorites to use (linked here).

== For more Earth-friendly corn-based golf tees, try Ecogolf.com in Knox, Indiana (linked here). You can also find some biodegradable golf tees from CompostableGoods.com (linked here).

== More travel gear information (linked here) at TreeHugger.com.

And don't forget sunscreen.

The book: "It Was Never About the Babe: How the Boston Red Sox Overcame Decades of Mismanagement and Racism and Built a Dynasty"

The author: Jerry M. Gutlon

How to find it: Skyhorse Publishing, 336 pages, $24.95

Where we'd go looking for it: It's here on Barnes & Noble (linked here) but otherwise not that easy to find.

The scoop: We hesistate to even bring this one up. Somehow, we are. Maybe because we're amused in some way that this even got printed.

Gutlon, listed as "an award-winning print and broadcast journalist who has been published in the New York Times and The Washington Post," uses 96 book references, 12 magazines, 14 online resources (including Wikipedia) and 24 newspapers to make a case that this is the "real" history of the Red Sox - owner Tom Yawkey owned a brothel, Jackie Robinson had a tryout at Fenway Park but was rejected because of his race, and Babe Ruth was never sold to the Yankees because owner Harry Frazee wanted to fund his Broadway play, "No No Nannette," but because baseball commissioner Ban Johnson wanted to throw Frazee out and Ruth was a major distruption in the clubhouse.

Gutlon contends that ownership picked its managers and players not by their talent but by who they drank with, there was insitutational racism.

OK, you got us interested....

WePlayGreen.org VP of corporate development Jennifer Corace is joined by Jack Cassel and Chris Dickerson in handing out company produced recycled canvas bags at Kevin Costner's Super Bowl party last January in Tampa, Fla.

The path that led us to tracking down Cincinnati Reds outfielder Chris Dickerson for a story today (linked here) on his eco-friendly project WePlayGreen.org (linked here) started with a call out of the blue to the Tucson, Ariz.-based Global Sports Alliance USA (linked here).

It was an organization that I came across in trying to figure out what was being done sports-related for Earth Day -- especially in Southern California, where surfers are concerned daily with the water quality, skiiers are concerned with global warming and golfers should be more concerned about courses that use reclaimed water and pesticides that could be counterproductive to the liveihood of a playing surface. Any sport played outdoors is much more earth conscious, but the fact that indoor facilities can do just as much work with recycled cooking oils, low-flow toilets and recycled napkins and corn-based cups and plates is just as necessary to talk about.

Maybe you'll get a chance to see Chris Dickerson (bio on MLB.com linked here) play for the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday night on the MLB Extra Innings package against the Cubs at Wrigley Field.

The left-handed hitting Dickerson, out of Notre Dame High of Sherman Oaks, won't usually start against the left-handed pitching Ted Lilly -- that's just the method Reds manager Dusty Baker has been using so far this season.

But if he gets in, check out the green-laced special Rawlings glove, or the green-stamped Max bat that Dickerson plans to use. It's not just for looks.

It supports his non-profit company, WePlayGreen.org. And one of the goals, along with raising awareness of Earth Day being every day, is to have a major-league game where players on both sides wear green uniforms -- and it's not a St. Patrick's Day exhibition game. The idea of a color-themed day has already been introduced with pink on Breast Cancer Awareness Day -- usually on Mother's Day. A green day baseball game, either on Earth Day or another designed day, is easier to implement now on the minor-league level, said WePlayGreen.org VP of corporate development Jennifer Corace .

In other words, it's not that easy being green on the big-league level. But as long as players like Dickerson can get friends like Ryan Braun, the Cassel family and, most recently, Russell Martin and Joe Mauer, the future looks greener. Read more about it Wednedsay morning.

More background:

== A story on Dickerson posted on MLB.com last November (linked here)

== Another MLB.com story on him when he was at Louisville in Triple A last July (linked here)

== Catch a little of Dickerson's personality here:

This just in from the AVP, from a story we first posted last summer (linked here):

The NCAA Division I Legislative Council added sand volleyball to the list of emerging sports for women, it was announced today, clearing the way for schools to use the sport toward minimum sponsorship requirements and minimum financial aid awards.

NCAA Division II had already voted to add sand volleyball to the emerging sports list at the 2009 NCAA Convention in January.

"The opportunity to play sand volleyball in the spring will spur growth in the sport. I wish I had that opportunity when I was at Stanford," said 2008 and 2004 Olympic Beach gold medalist Kerri Walsh. "Additionally, this development will give more women an opportunity for a professional volleyball career in the United States."

Capitalizing on the recent success of USA Volleyball's beach teams in the Olympics and the growth in grassroots programs, the NCAA's Committee on Women's Athletics made the recommendation to add the sport to the emerging sports list last summer.

"The United States has a proud and successful history in sand volleyball, having won at least one gold medal in every Summer Games since the discipline was added to the Olympic program in 1996," said USAV CEO Doug Beal. "This move by the NCAA is wonderful, particularly in light of the increased varsity athletic opportunities for young women at the collegiate level and the synergy with already existing USA Volleyball programs."

The NCAA will call the new sport "sand" volleyball, rather than "beach" volleyball, in hopes that the sport will have broad appeal across the country and not be confined to coastal areas. Already schools including Texas, Nebraska and Utah are competing in collegiate competitions in the spring.

"The addition of sand volleyball to the list of collegiate options is significant for our sport," said Kathy DeBoer, Executive Director of the American Volleyball Coaches Association. "With more than 400,000 girls playing high school volleyball, we welcome the addition of collegiate roster spots."

"We are thrilled that the NCAA has voted to make sand volleyball a collegiate sport," said Jason Hodell, CEO of AVP Pro Beach Volleyball. "The vote confirms the momentum behind the sport of beach volleyball, and we are excited to help grow our sport on the college level and create new beach volleyball stars around the country."

The NCAA will spend the next year developing the rules that will govern sand volleyball as a collegiate sport, including regulations on financial aid, playing dates and recruiting. Institutions will be able to sponsor varsity programs starting in the 2010-2011 academic year.

Back in January, ESPN aired a couple of episodes of "Homecoming," hosted by Rick Reilly, which featured the Texas Rangers' Josh Hamilton and former Denver Broncos quarterback (and Granada Hills High star) John Elway.

That was the "soft" launch. Now, it's hard. Well, not really.

Wednesday at 4 p.m., ESPN replays the Hamilton episode, followed by the Elway episode again (from the Granada Hills High gym) on Thursday at 4 p.m.

They're the first of the eight one-hour episodes Reilly was able to put together as kind of "This Is Your Life" for athletes. The remaining six episodes, however, don't air until this summer, starting July 2 and going through Aug. 6, on Thursdays at 4 p.m. The schedule:

== The Detroit Pistons' Rip Hamiton, in his hometown of Coatesville, Pa.
== Skateboarder Tony Hawk, at his middle school in San Diego
== Olympic swimmer and waterbong expert Michael Phelps, in Baltimore
== Hall of Fame receiver Jerry Rice, in San Francisco (not his real hometown)
== Arizona Cardinals QB Kurt Warner, in his hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa

"I hope people enjoy these Homecomings more than I enjoyed my Homecoming, in 1976, when my date threw up in my Rambler," said Reilly in an ESPN release.

More info: www.espn.com/homecoming

The book: "Tony LaRussa: Man on a Mission"

The author: Bob Rains, forward by Joe Buck

How to find it: Triumph Books, 295 pages, $24.95

Where we'd go looking for it: Amazon has it (linked here)

The scoop: From Buck's forward: "You don't know Tony LaRussa. You think you do, but you don't. I guarantee you that what you think you know about this man is not accurate. I have never met a man in sports, or life, who is more misunderstood."

OK, we'll give you that. Now change our mind.

Tonight's Dodgers-Astros game from Houston -- the debut of Eric Collins and Steve Lyons as the road TV broadcast team -- lands on KCAL Channel 9 (5:05 p.m.), with the pregame at 4:30 p.m.

Wednesday's Dodgers-Astros game at 5:05 p.m. bounces to Prime Ticket. Same broadcast crew.

Thursday, we got problems.

KCAL Channel 9 was originally scheduled to do it at 5:05 p.m., but then the Lakers-Utah playoff series Game 3 from Salt Lake City landed in their laps, and they're committed to doing them first (makes some sense, even though the game is also on TNT) with Joel Meyers and Stu Lantz. That one tips off at 7:30 p.m. (with the pregame at 6:30 p.m.).

Could the game then bounce to Prime? Nope. The Ducks-Sharks Game 4 of the NHL playoffs is set for Prime at 7:30 p.m.

Could the game bounce over to Fox Spors West? Nope. The Angels-Tigers game is set for 7 p.m.

So, if you have the MLB Network, you're in luck because the game will be there, with the Astros' Fox Sports Houston feed but with MLB Net broadcasters Matt Vasgersian and Joe Magrane, who are at Minute Maid Park for the contest (not back in the New Jersey studios). If you don't have it, you have, of course, the Dodgers' radio crew of Charley Steiner and Rick Monday on KABC-AM (790).

Remember back in the day, when not all the Dodgers' games were on TV, and if they were, you knew exactly where to find 'em? Now, not only is it a daily search and find for each game -- time, network, broadcast crew -- but we're not even sure what to wear for it.
Dress up, or casual Thursday?

This new incarnation of ABC's "The Superstars" competition set to come back to TV screens this summer -- June 23, if you need ample warning -- has a lineup of competitors.

Hold your applause to after you've consumed your Egg McMuffin.

Former Dodger Jeff Kent is in.

Let that soak in for a few seconds .... and .... OK.

So is Sparks center Lisa Leslie. And former Laker forward Robert Horry. Add in former tennis player Jennifer Capriati, women's soccer star Brandi Chastain, former freestyle skier Kristi Leskinen, Olympic skiier Bode Miller and ... new Buffalo Bills receiver Terrell Owens.

Put 'em in a house for a week and let the cameras roll? Nope, that's not how this show rolls.

They will be paired up with eight "celebrites" -- actress Ali Landry will be with Kent ...

Again, pause for effect. Now you know why Kent's in. He'd be nuts to decline.

Then, there's actor Dan Courtese (with Leslie), actor David Charvet (with Capriati), "Dancing With The Stars" performer Maksim Chmerkovskiy (with Leskinen), "Extreme Makeover" star Paige Hemmis (with Miller), singer Julio Iglesias Jr. (with Chastain) and actresses Joanna Krupa (with Owens) and Estella Warren (with Horry).

Did we mention Ali Landry? With hard-ass Kent? There's no crying in "Superstars," OK?

They'll do biking, running, swimming and kayaking, all in the Bahamas, with one team getting eliminated each week.

Our early favorite -- Chmerkovskiy and Leskinen. Becuase we have no idea who they are or how well they'll do, meaning they're likely to surprise everyone and run off with this.

Classic. Maybe they can get Keith Jackson out of retirement to narrate. Just so he can "Whoa Nellie" an Ali Landry dive into the pool.

We're as up on the NFL draft these days as a kid sticking his finger in a light socket. It may be electrifying TV to some, but to us, it's a shock to the system that really doesn't do anything except fringe the hair on the back of our necks.

For USC football followers who feel they've invested time and loyalty to the program and now want to see some kind of payoff, this is an interesting time. It's also an indication to Pete Carroll that, when he's recruiting more talent, he can always point to weeks like this as a way to get some wide-eyed player to see that, in L.A., this really is the taste of the NFL with all the Hollywood that comes with it.

The Adrenaline rush that local NFL fans have this week is most often related not to whom the local team will take, it's what local talent gets taken.

We've come across today's mock NFL draft in The Sporting News (linked here) has Clay Matthews going No. 15 to Houston, Brian Cushing going No. 19 to Tampa Bay and Rey Maualuga going No. 20 to (sorry) Detroit. And Fili Moala at No. 32 to Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh.

Throw in Mark Sanchez at No. 8 to Jacksonville, and that's five USC players in the first round of what some experts say will be known more for its depth rather than star talent.

Add to that the cover of this week's Sports Illustrated, Austin Murphy has the cover story featuring Cushing, Maualuga and Matthews, writing:

"While it's rare for a school to have three or more first-rounders, it would be unprecedented for three in the same position group to go that high. As the trio of 22-year-olds known as Cush, Clay and Rey sweated through Pro Day field drills, along with undersized outside 'backer Kaluka Maiava, who is projected as merely a middle-round pick, hard-boiled Indianapolis Colts scout John Becker told (USC coach Pete) Carroll he'd never seen so much talent at one position on the same team at the same time. It was with some justification, then, that at the end of those drills the linebackers drew close, joined their right hands and shouted, for the final time together and without apologies to Penn State, 'L-B-U!' "

In the SI mock draft, Peter King has Sanchez going No. 4 to Seattle -- "Incumbent Matt Hasselbeck turns 34 this year and missed much of last season with a bad back. Sanchez can be groomed for a year or two, then be ready to play." -- with Cushing at No. 15 to Texas, Matthews at No. 25 to Miami and Maualuga at No. 26 to Baltimore.

The power of the NFL is on display in full force this week. Everyone who's a football fan has a vested interest in this -- college and pro. Even high school. The dreams begin this week, the payoff to all the bumps and bruises and broken things along the way. Some dreams are broken. Some are made.

And everyone has an opionion about who'll take which player in what position. It's all talk until it happens. And there are two networks -- ESPN and the NFL Network -- to pick between to watch.

If it's a really nice day Saturday, we'll likely be outside enjoying it instead of glued to the TV at the 1 p.m. start (4 p.m. in the East, where it'll bleed into a prime time reality show). But if the ADD kicks in and we're drawn to this thing unexpectedly, we'd end up doing whatever it takes to watch. Even if means sticking a knife into a outlet to get the electricity back after an unexpected power outage.

While the Dodgers take a road trip to Houston starting today, Vin Scully, who doesn't take roadies past Colorado, will be in Las Vegas on Tuesday to accept induction into something called the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame during the NAB convention at the Las Vegas Hilton.

The NAB, according to their information provided, have 8,300 radio and television broadcasters in their group. A plaque in Scully's honor will be put up in the NAB building in Washington, D.C. Past winners include Edward R. Murrow, Ronald Reagan, Jack Buck, Gene Autry, Red Barber and Mel Allen.

Scully will join the Dodgers for the rest of their road trip starting Friday for a weekend series in Colorado, followed by three games in San Francisco (April 27-29) before returning home to face San Diego.

The book: "The Rocket That Fell To Earth: Roger Clemens and the Rage for Baseball Immortality"

The author: Jeff Pearlman

How to find it: Harper, 368 pages, $26.99

Where we'd go looking for it: Amazon serves it up (linked here). Or at the author's official website: www.jeffpearlman.com.

The scoop: The fact that the word "rage" is used in the title will automatically set off the steroid alert -- and that famous clip of Roger Clemens throwing a broken bat back at Mike Piazza during a World Series confrontation. That's probably more a marketing thing than anything else.

We go to the Roger Clemens' profile on the Yankees' MLB.com site, which still lists him for the 2009 season -- obviously with no information (linked here). Nothing under his "last 10 games." Nothing under "quick splits."

Has he effectively split from the scene after 24 seasons? His career marks: 354 wins, 184 losses, 3.12 ERA, 4,572 strike outs in 4,916 2/3 innings are there. But then, so are these list of latest "news" items about him:

February 03, 2009: Syringes test positive for Clemens' DNA
January 30, 2009: Report: McNamee syringes at lab
July 03, 2008: McNamee: Dismiss Clemens suit
June 24, 2008: McNamee plans new motion to dismiss

And there we are. The seven-time Cy Young Award winner (coincidentally, that's how many MVP awards Barry Bonds has won) last had a 6-6 mark with a 4.18 ERA in 17 starts (18 appearances) in 2007.

The real turning point in this warped tale of fame and fortune may have been 1996.
After 13 seasons in Boston, Clemens was washed up, according to Red Sox GM Dan Duquette. Clemens just finished a 10-13 season, with a league-high 257 strike outs. Yet, with Toronto in 1997 and 1998, when he was 34 and 35 years old, he won 20 and 21 games respectively and a couple of Cy honors.

How was Duquette to know that Clemens would somehow reinvent himself with a new workout regime -- and, perhaps, silly steroids?

The Yankees took him after that. In 2001, as a 38-year-old, he was 20-3 with a league best 271 strike outs. In 2004, with Houston, as a 41-year-old, he won 18 games and struck out 218.

It's all there in black and white. Famously stubborn, and not really the brightest guy with a live arm, Clemens' foibles that come out in this latest Pearlman gem could probably be used by anyone who's ever been wronged by the future Hall of Famer (?) over the years.

But how did it happen? Pearlman finds out about a family secret -- his brother Randy, nine years older, who really couldn't handle the success Roger had and resorted to drugs. That led to the 2000 shooting death of Randy's ex-wife, Kathy, over continued drug use by their 19-year-old son, Marcus. Kathy had been a very influencial person in Roger's life.

Clemens may be a hard nut to crack, but Pearlman, who in 2006 came out with "Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero" (linked here) does it here.

"I dug through eons of clips, interviewed hundreds upon hundreds of players, administrators, coaches, front-office executives, journalists, etc.," Pearlman writes on his site about the process. "It was, to be honest, a friggin' nightmare."

But it paid off. Thanks.

A side excerpt: An already frequently excerpted book (here's one on Deadspin), we also enjoyed Pearlman's tangents such as this one on Mike Piazza, who became a Clemens' antagonist over the years:

"As the hundreds of major league ballplayers who turned to performance-enhancing drugs throughout the 1990s did their absolute best to keep the media at arm's length, Piazza took the opposite approach. According to several sources, when the subject of performance enhancing was broached with reporters he especially trusted, Piazza fessed up. "Sure, I use," he told one. "But in limited doses, and not all that often." (Piazza has denied using performance-enhancing drugs, but there has always been speculation.)
"Whether or not it was Piazza's intent, the tactic was brilliant: By letting the media know, of the record, Piazza made the information that much harder to report. Writers saw his bulging muscles, his acne-covered back. They certainly heard the under-the-breath comments from other major league players, some who considered Piazza's success to be 100 percent chemically delivered.
"He's a guy who did it, and everybody knows it," says Reggie Jefferson, the longtime major league first baseman. "It's amazing how all these names, like Roger Clemens, are brought up, yet Mike Piazza goes untouched."
"There was nothing more obvious than Mike on steroids," says another major league veteran who played against Piazza for years. "Everyone talked about it, everyone knew it. Guys on my team, guys on the Mets. A lot of us came up playing against Mike, so we knew what he looked like back in the day. Frankly, he sucked on the field. Just sucked. After his body changed, he was entirely different. 'Power from nowhere,' we called it."
When asked, on a scale of 1 to 10, to grade the odds that Piazza had used performance enhancers, the player doesn't pause.
"A 12," he says. "Maybe a 13."

How it goes down in the scorebook: A must-read for anyone who once envisioned Clemens to be bigger than other Texas native Nolan Ryan.

More on Clemens "American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America's Pastime" By Teri Thompson, Nathaniel Vinton, Michael O'Keeffe, and Christian Red of the New York Daily News (Knopf, 464 pages, $26.95, linked here) will be released May 12 but excerpts will be published on SportsIllustrated.com on Tuesday and in the April 27 SI issue that hits newsstands on Wednesday.)

Without having seen this book, we'll go with the publisher's press release information: This one paints Clemens as "both a compromised player and a person of questionable conduct, a man destroyed by his own pride, dishonesty, and judgment. ... It explores Clemens's use of banned substances, details his dalliances with women, and suggests that he may have perjured himself while testifying before Congress."

"No player in baseball's long and rich history has fallen from grace as fast and as far as Roger Clemens," the authors write. "Clemens's fall is straight out of Greek mythology: The very traits that made him dominant on the pitcher's mound, his tenacity and mercilessness, contributed to and possibly even caused his downfall."

"The reporting culminates with Clemens unraveling in the wake of the Mitchell Report, when a series of choices transformed him from a Cooperstown shoo-in to the subject of a Justice Department perjury investigation."

This Daily News team of Thompson, Vinton, O'Keeffe and Red recently won an APSE Award for Best Investigative Reporting in 2008, for their Clemens coverage. Clemens declined to be interviewed for the book.

Dodger fans are apathetic? Arrive late and leave early? Give up on the team when they're losing?

In the stereotype world of Hollywood, maybe it's taken a documentary by a Hollywood guy to try to straighten out the rest of the baseball world.

"Bluetopia: The L.A. Dodgers Movie," which had its Hollywood premiere Saturday night and is available for sale starting Tuesday for $19.99 (find it at Amazon.com linked here) or at the Dodger Stadium store) found an odd cast of L.A.-centric characters to relive the 2008 season through.

Perhaps they don't live next to you. But they live among you. In that section right there where you're sitting and trying to watch the game. They're the people you're stepping over to get to the concession stand.

The guy who owns the True Blue tattoo parlor. The Burbank detective and his son. The man losing his wife to cancer. The little kid seeing his first game. The former gang member trying to follow the lead of a local heroic priest and straighten out his live, and those among his home boys. The trio of elderly ladies in the pavilion who've been coming forever. The batting practice pitcher living his dream every day. The mayor of L.A.'s media director.

Even the journalists given the chance to interview Vin Scully for the first time, or do the fan quiz each game, or host the radio talk show, or broadcast the games to a Korean language audience. And Roger Owens, the peanut man. They're all fans at heart, coming from all the diverse areas of L.A., a cultural melting pot converging on the holy ground of Dodger Stadium to unite themselves in blue.

"If anything, this proves that the Dodgers have very loyal fans," said Mike Tollin, the veteran TV and movie producer who was in attendance at the premiere.

It's produced by New York-based Bombo Sports & Entertainment (linked here -- which has done documentaries on such sports entities as Shawn White, the Boston Red Sox, the Boston Celtics, Chelsea soccer (called "Blue Revolution"), mixed-martial arts and the world poker tour -- and directed by Timothy Marx, who worked with Tollin on the HBO show "Arliss" as well as "Entourage."

"Bluetopia" also includes some interesting footage of Clayton Kershaw's rookie season and Manny Ramirez's arrival to L.A., and the impact all that had. There's plenty for Vin Scully fans, as well as clips to move the storyline from Charley Steiner, Rick Monday and other journalists who follow the team.

A Utopian view of the Dodgers organization? Maybe, in some ways. But if you're not feeling a bond to Dodger fans after watching this, you've missed the point.

The true reviews should come from the true Dodger fans. After Saturday night's premiere at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, we have a few to share:

Here's one at True Blue LA.com (linked here) that points out some of the highlights and some lowlights.

Here's another from Jon Weisman, the DodgerThoughts.com creator and Daily Variety writer who's featured in it (linked here)

Another review of it from an MLB.com writer (linked here)

The book: "The Unwritten Rules of Baseball: The Etiquette, Conventional Wisdom and Axiomatic Codes of Our National Pasttime"

The author: Paul Dickson

How to find it: Collins, 256 pages, $14.99

Where we'd go looking for it: Amazon has it (linked here)

The scoop: Last year, we came upon the book "The Code: Baseball's Unwritten Rules and Its Ignore-at-Your-Own-Risk Code of Conduct" by Ross Bernstein (linked here) which seemed to deal more about how pitchers retaliate and when it was right to get into a fight (hence, the cover shot of Nolan Ryan pummeling Robin Ventura).

In this one by Dickson, the go-to writer when it comes to defining baseball's history based on his Daniel Webster approach for the last several years, there seems to be much more context -- maybe not so many stories from players like Bernstein, but a better understanding of why things always lead to the real Two Commandments of baseball: Respect the game, and don't embarass yourself.

Dickson, like Bernstein, interviews players, coaches, mangers, writers and fans for their take on what conduct is appropriate. But Dickson, who has also done recent books on "The Hidden Language of Baseball," "The Joy of Keeping Score" and "Baseball's Greatest Quotations," seems to have more authority behind his probing questions.

"I can report that the unwritten rules are alive and well," Dickson writes. "After spending considerable time thinking about the unwritten rules, I have come to my own conclusion, which is that they are neither archaic nor arcane, but simply exist. While some of the rules are immutable, others are open to interpretation and depend on circumstances. Over time, they have been modified, amended and occasionally dropped. But they still exist and -- for better or worse -- give the game its essential character."

Dickson established a Joe Garagiola book from 1960, "Baseball Is A Funny Game" for helping give unwritten rules a voice, and then a 1986 list of 30 unwritten rules published in the Baseball Digest and credited to the Orange County Register's Peter Schmuck and Randy Youngman.

Breaking unwritten rules can have a profound affect on society -- like the Dodgers allowing Jackie Robinson to play on April 15, 1947, even though many were slow to follow the breaking of the MLB color barrier.

As for baseball's rules -- written and unwritten about steroid use, Dickson points out: "More than one editorialist made the point that if Major League Baseball was as serious about the written rules as it was about the unwritten rules, there would have been much less of a problem.'

So, what we really want to know: Is there crying in baseball? No, according to Dickson, who has numbered it 1.9.0. Nor is there rubbing a pitch that hits you in the batters' box (1.11.0).

How it goes down in the scorebook: Rule 4.1.0: The Official Scorer Should Make Sure That the First Hit of a Game Is a Good One when There is Even the Slight Chance That the Pitcher Is In the Early Stages of a No-hitter." This one's a hit. No replay needed.

A review on "Unwritten Rules" we'd also recommend: On Ron Kaplan's website (linked here)

What we also strongly endorse (maybe even more): Dickson's updated and third edition of "The Dickson Baseball Dictionary: The Revised, Expanded and Now-Definitive Work on the Language of Baseball" (Norton, $49.95, 974 pages (find ">it here)

Why its a necessary part of your baseball library: Even if you have the 1989 or 1999 editions, this one is refined as most dictionaries become over time. Dickson says after his first one with 5,000 entries, many contributed new definitions or words. The next version had 7,000 entries. This one has 10,000 entries with more than 18,000 definitions -- and more than 400 people helped with the process. "If someone told me at the very beginning of this undertaking there would be 10,000 terms to define, I would have said this was impossible," he writes. Just think of the new terms that had to be added since the first edition: Wildcard, realighment, Executive Council, interleague play, greenie and steroid. Plus, sabermetrics. Oh, and that thing that Dice-K throws, the gyroball.

"I can only claim that this is as close as can be gotten to definitive; but given the nature of the game and the nature of the language, the collecting of information and the recruiting of new volunteers continues," Dickson writes.

You're familiar with Joe McDonnell's radio resume in Los Angeles sports-talk history (check his website).

If you tuned into the Sporting News Radio Network this morning, you heard the start of his latest stop.

Seven months after his departure from KLAC-AM (570)'s weeknight show -- he was replaced by Tony Bruno, who was then dropped when the station turned to Fox Sports syndicated radio stuff -- McDonnell is co-hosting a 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekend show with Bob Berger on the Sporting News Radio Net, which can be access at the publication's official website (linked here), as well as Sirius XM Satellite 127 and on San Diego's XX Sports Radio 1090-AM (linked here) when it doesn't conflict with Padres coverage.

McDonnell, who's been showing up lately at Dodgers and Lakers games, will also be doing writing and blogging for the magazine and its website.

Eric Collins came clean -- since 1981, he's only missed 11 episodes of "General Hospital."

Maybe that's what makes him a good candidate to be the next play-by-play man for the Dodgers.

"That's what I love about baseball, it's a daily soap opera, with a great rhythm, the smell of the cut grass, the sounds, where something that happens on April 15 can be brought up on September 15 to put things into context," the 39-year-old said during a recent conversation at Dodger Stadium, where he's been doing some practice games in the booth with new partner Steve Lyons as they prepare for their first series together next week in Houston (for Prime Ticket and KCAL Channel 9).

"That's the beauty of the long season."

A profile of Collins will be in Sunday's paper.

One of the new cool things the Dodgers have done in their broadcast booth is put up a row of photographs of every broadcaster in team history, starting with Red Barber ... and now with Collins on the end. Here's a list they've also posted with the photos...

Collins, who has done college sports for ESPN the last six years as well as Olympic baseball for NBC in the last Olympics, right away knows the company he keeps.

"There are some expectations," he says. "I'm not stupid."

Brad Zager, the Dodgers' game producer for Prime Ticket and KCAL-Channel 9, admits that Collins and Lyons are in a more difficult spot having to sound like a cohesive unit with a start-and-stop schedule rather than jumping in from the beginning and seeing each other every day. After the three-game series in Houston (a trip that continues with Scully in Colorado and San Francisco), the two don't work together until May 12-17 on a trip to Philadelphia and Miami.

"But from all the people I know who've worked with him, the feedback has been all positive," Zager said of Collins. "I think it will be very energizing. It's always fun to have a new voice, to get a new perspective and new angle. He's from the same era of baseball experience as Steve, so I think they'll mesh well as a team. He may be new to the Dodger audience, but he's not new to TV play-by-play."

Part of the new approach to the Collins-Lyons team will also to be more interactive with blogging as well as with texts, emails or Twitters during the telecast.

A quick bio:

Age: 39 (turns 40 on June 16)
Hometown: Born and raised in Cleveland; living in Chicago with wife Keri, 3-year-old daughter Beatrice and newborn daughter, Harriet.
Education: Earned BA in philosophy from St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y.; a Master's degree in broadcasting from Syracuse University.
Baseball experience: Lead play-by-play for NBC on 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. ESPN's College Baseball Super Regionals the last five years. Radio and television play by play for the Chicago White Sox on occasions in 2004 and 2008. Four seasons with the Schaumburg Flyers and Rochester Red Wings minor-league teams. Pregame and postgame host for the White Sox and Cubs.
Other broadcasting jobs: College softball, basketball and football for ESPN. Sideline reporter for the Chicago Bulls from 1997-2002.
Quote: "I had a nice job doing news reporting in Rochester, N.Y., covering city hall, homicides ... But I felt I was dying a slow death. I called a friend who told me I needed to follow my bliss. I called around and wanted to do baseball. My first baseball job paid $25 a game, and $37.50 for doubleheaders with the Rochester Red Wings. I was so broke I had to give up my apartment and sleep on the floor for a summer in my friend's parents' house. Eventually, working for Schaumburg near Chicago, where there were plenty of six hour bus rides and $15 per diems ... I knew what I wanted to do. To be in a major-league press box now... It's incredible."

The book: "Baseball Prospectus: The Essential Guide to the 2009 Baseball Season"

The authors: Edited by Steven Goldman, Nate Silver and Christina Kahrl, forward by Keith Olbermann

How to find it: Plume Books, 628 pages, $21.95

Where we'd go looking for it: Get it straight from the home website of the Baseball Prospectus (linked here), join the club, and get a discount.

The scoop: Is it too late to use this for your fantasy draft?

Good.

Then you can read this for what it really provides -- the 14th edition of a guide, spinning of the Bill James' Baseball Abstract, that has a lot of depth and width when you're trying to figure out why certain players and teams end up doing certain things that you should have seen coming.

Remember when the phone book arrived, and your dad got excited about it (OK, so see the movie "The Jerk" to get the full effect). That's how MLB GMs act when they get this in the mail.

Take it from a reader review on Barnes & Noble: "Whether you're a casual fan or a fantasy nut, you'll treasure Baseball Prospectus. It provides more stats than you'll ever need or even knew existed. They provide projections of statistical performance that are uncannily accurate. In the past General Managers of professional teams have endorsed this book. If you watch baseball on TV, your viewing experience will be greatly enhanced."

How it goes down in the scorebook: If Olbermann gives it the stamp of approval, we're on board. Lord knows, we'd hate to be one of the world's worst people for failing to endorse this as well.

Also read: "The Bill James Gold Mine 2009" (linked here)

Andre Penner/AP photo

Coach Armando Higashi talks with young baseball players in Ibiuna, Brazil last month as the Tampa Bay Rays invest in a baseball academy that is focusing on building baseball in Brazil.

By Carolina Escalera
The Associated Press

IBIUNA, Brazil -- The Tampa Bay Rays are hoping a few Brazilians can handle a bat better than they kick a soccer ball.

Convinced that this nation of 190 million people is loaded with untapped baseball talent, the Rays are looking to break into the land of soccer by becoming the first Major League Baseball team to sponsor an academy in Brazil.

The Rays will invest $6.5 million in the next five years in the academy, which will train future players and promote the game locally. Up to 4,000 young people will have a chance to learn the sport at a free after-school program.

"Brazil has been good at producing athletes," said Andres Reiner, special director of development for the Rays. "Brazil has a lot of people, millions of young people and not everyone can play soccer. If they aren't good soccer players they can be good baseball players."

Reiner said that in the long term, when the Rays' Brazilian academy proves to be successful, other teams will start scouting in Brazil and even set up their own academies. The Rays already have two academies in Latin America, in Venezuela and in the Dominican Republic.

Adriano de Souza, a Brazilian who played professionally for various major league teams and is the coordinator of the academy, said he wants to change the way the sport is viewed in Brazil.

"We not only want to give the opportunity for people to learn baseball, but we want to make baseball more popular among the public," Souza said.

From an ESPN conference call today with Mel Kiper Jr., on the upcoming NFL draft, his longwinded take on the future of USC quarterback Mark Sanchez and why coming out now instead of next year may not have been in his best draft interest:

"Had he gone back, he would have been battling Sam Bradford to be the No. 1 pick overall (in 2010). That's pretty guaranteed. With the talent they have with Damian Williams, the great receiver there emerging this season, they would have had him in place to be the No. 1 pick overall or Bradford. The fact that he comes out early, I thought he was the fifth-best player. I talked to some people ... they were amazed when people had him down the line like they did at 17 to the Jets in an early projection.

"I have him 13 to Washington because I thought about putting him to Seattle and I was told not to. I still think Seattle is a possibility. And, once you don't put him to Seattle, then you have a problem. I had him at Jacksonville and was told that they like him but they aren't going to take him. San Francisco, I've been told, they're not going to take a quarterback. Eight could be traded, 10 could be traded. That means someone can jump in there. ...

"He's a hot guy right now because of the fact that he's what you want in terms of accuracy. And that's not just in the pocket, that's not just when he has all day to throw. He can roll right, he can roll left and throw accurately. His completion percentage was through the roof at around 66 percent this year. His touchdown-interception ratio was outstanding. He played through that knee injury early on and he didn't have a great supporting cast early on. Damian Williams emerged as the year went along. His offensive line was a rebuilt group. ...

"I think when you look at what he was able to do this year with the numbers he put up, and the skill level he has and the football acumen, the smarts, the intelligence, the passion for the game, the enthusiasm for the game that he has, he's got a lot of Chad Pennington in him. He's got a little bit of Troy Aikman, in terms of accuracy. He's got a lot of good quarterbacks wrapped up in Mark Sanchez. That's why all the buzz seems to be about Sanchez right now."

That said, Kiper has QB Matt Stafford going No. 1 overall to Detroit: "I would expect Stafford to go No. 1. I don't have any inside information on what Detroit's thinking in terms of obviously they want to have this guy signed before the draft if they can. To me it would be the obvious pick. That's what they need."

We're not sure we want to live in a world without John Madden on TV or Harry Kalas on the NFL highlights. But, we must.

One retired. One expired. And living as we know it won't be the same.

We've learned not to take things for granted. Oh, wait. We've learned that long ago.

We've learned to expect the unexpected. Right, another cliche.

About the only real things we learned this week, aside from the obvious, can be capsulated below, just to prove that everything isn't Madden related:

== Why Madden says he did what he did (linked here)

== Why can't Erin Andrews be in the new Madden NFL video game? (linked here)

== What would John Madden think about Stephen A. Smith leaving ESPN soon? (linked here) Or
== Bryant Gumbel's shoutout to Lance Armstrong via "Real Sports" (linked here) Or if Adam Schefter shuffles off to ESPN? (linked here)

== Will John Madden read this month's Esquire piece on Todd Marinovich? (linked here)

== Yes, we appreciate Vin Scully, too. He was once John Madden's NFL booth partner. And he's still alive (linked here)

== Memo to Bob Costas: If you're going to get the opportunity to call the first home run at Yankee Stadium, and people will hear the call forever, you might want to get the player's name right as he rounds the bases ... it wasn't John Madden (linked here)

== Have you seen the new NHL.com website? Why not? And isn't there an NHL player named John Madden? (linked here)

== Is John Madden one of the guys who drools over watching Hannah Storm (real name: Storen) on ESPN now? (linked here)

== We're not sure why ESPN has its own website dedicated to Chicago, but surely, John Madden must (linked here)

== Why does Padres closer Heath Bell dislike ESPN's baseball coverage? Because John Madden isn't involved? (linked here)

AND FINALLY:

== They love them some Eric Karros hairstyle, from last Saturday's Angels-Red Sox telecast on the Fox regional opener (linked here).

"More distracting than a 1,000 FOX robots doing the Thriller Dance in unison."

They then wondered how Karros would look if he had the Disney Concert Hall on his head instead (to see if it was any different):

The book: "Baseball and the Baby Boomer: A History, Commentary and Memoir"

The author: Talmage Boston (forward by Frank Deford)

How to find it: Bright Sky Press, 288 pages, $24.95

Where we'd go looking for it: Amazon has it (linked here)

The scoop: The Baby Boomer age is defined in American culture as a person born between 1946 and 1964 -- both years of St. Louis Cardinals' seven-game World Series triumphs. I'll fall into the later part of that window -- 1961, the year the Los Angeles Angels were at the old Wrigley Field, born the day between Roger Maris' 17 and 18th home runs during his 61-HR season (two of them came at Wrigley Field that year, including No. 50 on Aug. 22), the 109-win New York Yankees winning the World Series over Cincinnati with an ailing Mickey Mantle.

If you just narrow the sport of baseball from the prism of those who've experienced it from that era -- meaning, by the time they experienced it for the first time, we're talking the years 1950s through 1970s -- the game seems so far away from its present day status, but the population of that time frame continue to cling to the ideas that it can still somehow be that way again. Or, maybe not. We've grown up with the game, played it, coached it and seen our kids play it as well.

Baseball was integrated. It happened on TV instead of the radio, yet we only knew of the players from stories in newspapers and magazines. Players stayed with their teams. There was no tier of playoffs other than the World Series. And baseball cards were affordable with that brittle stick of gum. Artificial turf and domed parks were fantasy.

What Boston, a trial lawyer and baseball historian, tries to do here is not just rehash those times, but go into some depth about people and places that really hit home and stayed there with the Baby Boomer generation. They are what Boston felt was important, mostly to him, and without digging into minutiae but "I like to think my strength as a writer is the ability to synthesize information into cmplete, concise and vivid self-contained chapters," he writes. "Readers and critics can determine whether I've succeeded in doing that with this book."

He did.

To highlight a few chapters:

== Mutt Mantle may have played hours of catch with his son, Mickey, and John Piersall may have done the same with his kid, Jimmy, but despite their good intentions, "the ony dreams their time in the game produced for their sons were of the nightmare variety," Boston writes in Chapter 1 about the "dark side of fathers and sons playing catch." This, in contrast to the poet Donald Hall who once waxed eloquent in his essay, "Fathers Playing Catch with Sons" in the 1970s, and the 1980s movie "Field of Dreams" showing how Kevin Costner only wanted to have a catch one more time with his dad.

== Nolan Ryan "Baby Boomer Symbol of the Game" in Chapter 4. Humility, loyalty, common sense, self-discipline, coming home again.

== Bart Giamatti, "the most eloquent voice ever to address the many facets of baseball," in Chapter 5.

== The author's first visit to Cooperstown, in Chapter 6, and what it meant to him.

== The saga of Maris, comparing it to the baseball steriod era of today, in Chapter 7. Writes Boston: "Roger Maris was part hardshell crab and part high-flying bird. In 1961 he lifted up the baseball world onto his strong but medium-sized shoulders and created an image, a legacy, and a non-steroidal record that stays with us to this day."

How it goes down in the scorebook: A booming homer to right field, right where Maris would have put it.

The author's official site: http://www.talmageboston.com/

Also check out: Boston's 2005 book, "1939: Baseball's Tipping Point," forwarded by John Grisham (linked here)

More tributes to the retiring John Madden? You didn't get enough yesterday?

After Thursday's website-version story about the news (linked here) and with today's column on how Frank Caliendo may have added to the cartoonish personna of Madden in his later years (linked here), we have some final Madden salvos, plus a few more notes that didn't make the cut:

== Longtime partner Pat Summerall: "I think his work ethic and passion and love for the game made him apart from everybody else. He didn't talk down to people. He talked as if he was sitting next to you and explaining things to you."

== Fox studio analyst Howie Long: "Trust me, I had many a late night waiting for one of my three boys to get home at 1 a.m. because the newest Madden game was being released at midnight. But the thing that I think of when I hear the name 'John Madden' is great coach, Hall of Fame coach. To me, that's truly what defines who John is. He is a teacher and a coach and always will be. NFL Sundays just won't be the same."

== Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "There might not be a national broadcaster in any sport whose persona was so identified with the sport he called. John Madden is pro football. He looks like pro football. He talks like pro football. If he marketed cologne it would be called football. He does market a National Football League video game and, fittingly, it's called 'Madden.'"

== And speaking (as Caliendo was) about a version of "McMadden's" fast food chain possibilities, this commercial that Madden did long ago:

== NBA rules continue to allow teams to carry their first-round playoff games to each team's home market with local broadcasts, meaning that even if ESPN or TNT has the Lakers' game (as long as it's not ABC), it'll still be on FSWest (for home games 2, 5 and/or 7) or KCAL Channel 9 (for Utah games 3, 4 and/or 6) with Joel Meyers and Stu Lantz. FSWest will also do a pregame and postgame with Bill Macdonald and -- yes! -- Norm Nixon (take a drink everytime he says something) a half hour before and after each game. Except for Sunday's Game 1 (on Channel 7), with it's only a post-game at 2:30 p.m.

== Tuesday's episode of the fast-cut, edgy-camera movement "E:60" (Tuesday, 4 p.m.) includes a piece by Lisa Salters on Dodgers assistant general manager Kim Ng, with Dodgers manager Joe Torre and Yankees GM Brian Cashman interviewed as well.

A clip of the show:

E:60 Dodgers Asst. GM Kim Ng Preview from ESPN Communications on Vimeo.

== AND THE CLOSING ARGUMENT:

From The Onion Sports (linked here):

Harry Kalas Tribute Video Somehow Narrated By Harry Kalas

PHILADELPHIA--In what fans are calling a touching and entirely fitting tribute to the Philadelphia icon, the Phillies released a farewell video of Harry Kalas Monday narrated by Kalas himself.

"In Philadelphia, they'll tell you that if Harry Kalas said it, it must be true," Kalas' distinctive voice can be heard saying over a montage of great Kalas moments, including his first day as a Phillies broadcaster and both Phillies World Series victories.

"His honeyed old-leather-and-bourbon baritone was spring and summer to generations of baseball fans. We'll miss his voice, but not as much as we'll miss the man. So, one last time, we say: Long drive...watch that baby...outta here. Home run, Harry Kalas."

The Phillies declined comment on the video itself, saying only that choosing Kalas to narrate the labor of love was a "no-brainer" and that no other voice would do Kalas' legend justice.

It's already got a listing on Amazon.com (linked here), this 272-page book on the life and times of the Dodgers' Vin Scully, written by noted baseball broadcast historian Curt Smith.

Smith told us back in Feburary, 2008 (linked here) that the project was on hold, because of Scully's misgivings about it, and Smith's desire to focus more attention on the presidental race. Apparently, Scully's reluctance to having it done won't stop Smith.

In November, 2007, Smith also told us: "I feel strongly that any public figure such as Scully deserves a biography, but I don't wish to be presumptive. It's something I've had in mind for at least the last 10 years." Others picked up on that story (linked here).

Today, on the media blog Fang's Bite, a Q-and-A with Smith produced the following information (linked here) about Smith's project:

Q: You've written a biography of Vin Scully that will be published in May. Do you see any similarities in style between Vin and Harry (Kalas)?
CS: Vin is baseball's gold standard: by any reckoning, radio/TV's Roy Hobbs. He links subtlety, telling fact, love of history, standing in the player's shoes, and poetry: "It was so hot today the moon got sun-burned." Harry's prose was more minimalist: his voice resonant, transcendent, soothing, engaging. I still remember July 2002. Philly fanatics filled a field in Cooperstown. "This is the ultimate honor," Harry said of entering the Hall of Fame. Tearing, he imagined Ashburn's twist: "Hard to believe, Harry!" Kalas ended with a poem: "Philadelphia fans, I love you!" From the distance a voice yelled, "and we love you, too, Harry!" The Delaware Valley always will.

Q: What can we expect in your upcoming Vin Scully biography?
CS: This is the first biography of baseball's greatest Voice, describing Vin's voyage from Brooklyn via Los Angeles to NBC TV, CBS Radio, and the Hall of Fame. "Pull Up A Chair: The Vin Scully Story" shows Vin born in the Bronx, attending Fordham, joining Red Barber at Ebbets Field, calling Brooklyn's sole world title, and moving to California, where he became the Dodgers' connecting tissue between the public and its game. Later, he became the surpassing network personality of baseball on the air. In a sense, his history is baseball's post-World War II history: a nonpareil announcer, and career.

Q: In your research on Vin's biography, is there one story or event in his life that stood out?
CS: If silence is golden, Vin long ago became a vein, pausing, letting the crowd hold sway, upon Hank Aaron's 715th homer, Bill Buckner's 1986 error, and 1988's Kirk Gibson, improbably doing deep. Also, his use of language wows, likening a poor fielder to the Ancient Mariner: "He stoppeth one in three"; terming pitching "like a tailor: a little off here, a little off there, and you're done." In a sentence he can segue from Jimmy Durante to John Donne.

The book: "Catcher: How The Man behind the Plate Became an American Folk Hero"

The author: Peter Morris

How to find it: Ivan R. Dee, 386 pages, $27.50

Where we'd go looking for it: Amazon has it (linked here)

The scoop: Catching up on the creation and early evolution of the catcher position won't leave your hands hurting.

Morris, who proved his gumption in the baseball history genre by writing two volumes of his classic, "A Game of Inches" in 2006 (linked here and here), followed them up with "But Didn't We Have Fun?" in 2008 (linked here) and "Level Playing Field" in 2007 (linked here and our review of it last year, linked here) that really sets the stage for this one.

The rare photos uncovered from the Library of Congress and Baseball Hall of Fame notwithstanding, Morris' prose again, digging up facts and clearing up fiction about how the position turned from someone who stood far back behind the batter to one who had to move closer when the curveball came into existence -- still, not wearing a glove or mask -- are what make this a non-stop read once you get rolling.

The period covered here -- the 1870s until the early 1900s -- define how indispensable a position catcher became and still is. Or, as Casey Stengell once said: "You have to have a catcher or you'll have a lot of passed balls." Especially with spitballs they had to deal with.

The famous author Stephen Crane was the starting catcher on the Syracuse University varsity baseball team in 1891 while he was studying literature. Hence, the first indication that the position needed someone with a good head on his shoulders. Maybe it's the real inspiration for "The Red Badge of Courage," which came four years later, when he was 23. The position, as Crane would prove, was representative of courage, leadership, resolve and daring -- things the American boys who came of age in the 1870s and 1880s, right after the Civil War -- thought initiated them into manhood. It was the Daniel Boone position on the baseball field that showed real bravery and tactical brilliance.

Morris even quotes the great sportswriter Henry Chadwick, known as the Father of Modern Baseball, as saying: The captain of a nine should be a good general player: and if he excels as a catcher, all the better, for that is his place in the field ... (he) should be well up in all the points of the game and on the watch to take advantage of the errors of the opposing nine."

© Bettmann/CORBIS

St. Louis' Joe Torre slides under Phillies catcher Tim McCarver to score on a sacrifice fly in a game at Philadelphia in 1971.

Interesting, the position changed a bit in the 1890s where it was given to those rather portly or those "who couldn't get out of their own way." Regardless, the catcher position turned out some of the game's first great managers and GMs -- Connie Mack, Branch Rickey and Wilbert Robinson -- from the late 1800s to the 1920s. Just look at the top mangers in the game today who were catchers -- starting with the Dodgers' Joe Torre and the Angels' Mike Scioscia.

Some things don't really change.

There are, by the way, almost 100 pages dedicated to an appendix of references and an index, proving Morris' research really is pretty thorough. And organized. And did you know: The frist hit recorded in the first major league game ever played was by Jim White -- a catcher, who Morris contends, based on his career, belongs in the Hall of Fame but somehow has been passed over. Morris calls it "a grave injustice" but "it makes sense in a curious way. He was the greatest catcher of an era when the feats of catchers were so incomparable that they could not be incorporated into the game's history."

With that, let's also not forget Silver Flint, Joe Leggett, Nat Hicks and Charley Bennett.

How it goes down in the scorebook: A ball in the dirt, blocked by the catcher who slides to his right in the correct fashion, gets his body in front of it, and knocks it down with his chest protector, flipping off the mask to make sure the runner on first has no ideas of taking an extra base.

How John Madden explained his broadcasting retirement on his KCBS-AM radio show in the Bay Area today:

Why he's doing it: "Heck, I can't even say it, but I've decided to retire. It's tough, not because I'm not sure it's the right time, I really feel strongly that this is the right time. I'm just going to miss everything about it because I enjoy it so much. It was one of those things when you get around 70 you have to start thinking at some point it's going to be over, but I was one that always believed you never say you're going to retire before you do, because once you say it then you've already done it in your mind and you've already quit.

"We did the Super Bowl and I thought about it the last two months. Sometimes I felt like I'm going to do it (return), and then there'd be days I'm going to retire. Finally, I was up against it. The two months were up, the NFL schedule was coming out and I said, 'this is what I'm going to do' so I called Dick Ebersol about a week ago and then he came out yesterday and we talked about it. We talked about some other possibilities and I said no. I'm ready to do this.

One of the points I made was now my grandkids are old enough that they know when I'm gone and when I'm not. When they were younger they weren't always sure. This year is my 50th wedding anniversary and that comes in December. You just add up everything and it's just the right time."

On speculation something could be wrong: "There's nothing wrong. Everybody's going to say, 'Madden retires, what's wrong?' There's nothing wrong with me. I'm in the middle of a contract; I have three more years on my contract at NBC. It's not that. It's not that I'm tired of traveling in the bus. You just get to a point that you know at some point you have to do this, and I got to that point."

On the difficult decision: "The thing that made it hard is not that I'm second guessing that it's the right decision, it's that I enjoyed it so damn much. I enjoyed the games and the players and the coaches and the film and the travel and everything. That's why it took me so long. I'm not tired of anything, but I'm going away. That's what makes it hard."

On how this compared to retiring from the Raiders as a head coach: "It's the second time I've done it. When I coached the Raiders I ended it that way. I didn't say that this would be my last year. I took some time off and I felt that I didn't want to go through it again and then that was it; I still love pro football so I retired. Then I came into television broadcasting and it was the same way. It wouldn't have been me to say the week of Super Bowl this is my last game. That's not me, I don't do that.

On whether he could do just of the '09 season: "Dick Ebersol and Sandy Montag came out yesterday and we talked all about it. We talked about other possibilities, other things I could do, be it part of the season or something like that or announce I'm retired and then do some more games."

What's next: "I'm still going to travel. That's the thing, I'm not going to stay put. I can't do that. I'm still going to have the bus. I'll be going to the Hall of Fame in August. There is always going to be something coming up. It's not that I'm going to stop traveling or stop doing stuff. I'm still going to be doing things, I'm just not going to be doing pro football on television anymore."

On his grandkids: "I kind of missed a lot of that with my own sons. When they were babies they really didn't know when you were there and when you weren't. Sam was just eight and he's the oldest one. They're eight, seven, six, five, four, and three. Now they know. They know when I'm here and they know when I'm gone."

Final thoughts: "It was a great ride, I enjoyed every part of it, but that part of my life has come to an end now. This would be the first year I haven't had a football season since my freshman year in high school. I've had a season every year because I went from player to coach and from coach to broadcaster. In my life I've never had a season off. I've never had a football season off. This will be the first one."

Not a good year for the comedian, with George Bush leaving office and now...

ESPN and ABC Sports president George Bodenheimer on John Madden's retirement:

"John Madden is a true legend and Hall of Famer who has put his imprint on the NFL in so many ways as a coach, broadcaster, ambassador, and as the face of the popular video game that bears his name. We thank him for the years he spent on Monday Night Football, and I personally thank him for his friendship. We will all miss his signature calls, his passion for the game and seeing him in the television booth each week of the NFL season, but his impact on the league and its fans will continue to be felt. I wish him all the best in his retirement."

There was this story that appeared in the Wall Street Journal (linked here) days before the most recent Super Bowl, by Matthew Futterman, that deconstructed recent games that John Madden had done for NBC and raised the question of whether Madden's observations about the NFL weren't as sharp and if he was surviving on reputation at age 72.

When asked during a conference call this morning whether Madden had lost something off his fastball, here was the response:

From agent Sandy Montag: "It's a subjective business, and John won 16 Emmys and was nominated again for this past season -- and won the year before. As far as 'losing it,' I'm not objective. There are critics who take a shot and I think most football fans say he's still the best broadcaster on TV and is going out on top. There will always be people who have opinions."

From NBC Sports boss Dick Ebersol: "I wasn't as sharp at 45 as he is at 73. And he did it in the most pressure situations, like the last Super Bowl in February. That fourth quarter was the most dynamic football we've seen in any important stage ever. I don't think there was a single reviewer who didn't say Al (Michaels) and John didn't blow everybody's socks off. ... I can't relate (to the criticism). I thought one article written in January by a national paper was stupid and ridiculous piece of stuff. This guy was the best and is the best."

From Fox Sports chair David Hill, who brought John Madden to Fox from CBS, on Madden's retirment from broadcasting today:

"I am still in shock about John's announcement. He may well be 73, but he has the drive, enthusiasm and mental agility of a 24 year-old. John is, and has always been a powerful force of nature. A heady mix of wisdom, football lore, and boyish glee - an insatiable curiosity, and the God given ability to utilize his teacher training skills from so long ago to impart what we see, but don't see, on the football field. He always spoke as a knowledgeable friend, always speaking with and to the viewer, never at the viewer.

"When we started Fox Sports, he joyously embraced the credo 'Same Game - New Attitude,' and everything we did. Computerized scoring, the Fox Box, the close up audio - everything we brought to the mix. The first down line, which has become the most necessary part of a broadcaster's tools, was a John Madden idea.

"I loved listening to him on Fox, I loved listening to him on NBC - just as I had loved listening to him on CBS. My bet is this retirement will be short, and that amazingly agile mind will be dreaming up new things to do!"

From Fox Sports president Ed Goren:

"John is an original. He's been the face of the NFL for three decades and by far and away the number one sports analyst on television. Amazingly, he's been so dominant that he's never been challenged. John's impact on the way television covers the NFL is a legacy that will last well into the future. During the time I worked with him at CBS and Fox, he wasn't just a lead analyst, John was always our 'head coach.'"

From NFL analyst Troy Aikman:

"John and I first met when I was player and our friendship grew closer when I went into broadcasting. He was always available and had great advice. My induction into the Hall of Fame was made even more special because we went in side-by-side. John's the guy you want to sit next to during a game and, for thirty years, he essentially was. During a broadcast, you'd think he was talking directly to you. I, along with millions of other fans, will miss hearing an old friend on Sundays."

From a conference call this morning, Dick Ebersol, the chief of NBC Sports, whose relationship with Madden actually goes back to an episode of "Saturday Night Live" that Madden hosted in 1982 when Ebersol was the show's producer:

"I got a phone call nine days ago, late in the day at my apartment, and he said, 'I'm going to retire.' And I went, 'No, you're not.' And he said, 'I'm going to retire.' From that moment forth I set on a course to persuade him not to. I knew right away I couldn't talk him out of it. He's thought about it the last two months. He had a physical a week before and it was the best physical he's had in years -- and that's what actually propelled him in this direction.

"He's had to balance (his family life with his professional life) and he came to the same conclusion as he did 30 year ago that the coaching game was at a point where he'd done everything he possibly could and he steps away as the absolute best sports broadcaster who ever lived. His fame is better than with anyone else's because he did the biggest sport in America.

"When we got the new schedules on Tuesday I flew to California and met with him, maybe 11 hours until 9 p.m. last night and I had some proposals as I laid out the schedule. I said that he could do September games -- with Pittsburgh and Green bay and the new building in Dallas and then on the way home do (Indianapolis at Arizona), then take October off, then do the November games that 'sound' like Madden games -- Dallas-Philadelphia, New England-Indianapolis, Philadelphia-New York, then take December off. I could see he was thinking about it, but he finally said, 'It's time.'"

== Sandy Montag, Madden's longtime friend and agent:

"I have been with John my entire professional career, since 1985 when I was a gopher assistant on Amtrack. He taught me everything. It's a sad day but it's a happy day. He's perfectly healthy, in the middle of a six-year contract, he loves everything he does -- he does love to travel, the gamefilm, the prep... but the main problems is that, unfortunately, the Raiders and 49ers and football in general on the West is not as strong as it once was so he never got home during the season. When you're 73, your priorities change.

"He's meant a lot to a lot of different people. There are plenty of other things for him to do. He's too young in mind and body to just go away. He'll continue to do his video game and endorsements and travel by bus. But it's time for him to spend with his family and get on with the rest of his life."

Madden did not attend the conference call, but made his personal statement on his radio show this morning on KCBS in San Francisco. Asked why he wasn't on the call, Montag added: "He's doing this on his terms. Because he's been live on his local radio show the last 30 years, he choose to talk there for 10 minutes about this and it was as emotional as I've ever seen him. There are no ulterior motives. If he could just announce it and, poof, go away, that's how he'd do it."

From an NBC statement on Al Michaels' reaction to John Madden's retirement:

"John will always have a unique place in the history of pro football.

"No one has made the sport more interesting, more relevant and more enjoyable to watch and listen to than John. There's never been anyone like him and he's been the gold standard for analysts for almost three decades.

"On a personal note, I'll miss working with John on many levels. As a broadcast partner, I could always count on him -- no one ever came to work more prepared. As a friend and confidante, loyalty has always been paramount to John. And all in all, he was simply just great company.

"As John said today, 'it was time." That's John -- succint, pithy and right to the point. Working with John for the last seven years has provided memories I'll always treasure. My only regret is that it wasn't 27."

From the NFL offices of the commissioner on John Madden's retirement from broadcasting:

"There is one thing football fans have agreed on for decades: they all love John Madden. John was a Hall of Fame coach before becoming one of the most-celebrated personalities in sports. He had an incredible talent for explaining the game in an unpretentious way that made it more understandable and fun.

"John's respect and passion for the game always stood out. He was the ultimate football fan who also happened to be an extraordinarily talented coach and broadcaster.

"As namesake of the world's most popular sports videogame, John also introduced the game of football to generations of young fans.

"It is only fitting that his last game as an announcer was this year's Super Bowl - the most-watched TV program of all-time. He is stepping down as a true Super Bowl champion."

Larger than life and a Hall of Famer on many levels, John Madden has decided that he's finished as an NFL broadcaster and will throw no one under his bus as he retires to his Northern California home to enjoy the fact he no longer has to travel.

Madden's last game in a broadcast career that began in 1979 was last February's Steelers-Cardinals Super Bowl -- his 11th Super Bowl behind the mike.

Dan Patrick, an NBC "Football Night in America" studio host, announced the news on his syndicated radio show this morning, adding that Cris Collinsworth has been the groomed candidate to step in with Al Michaels on the NBC "Sunday Night" games for the 2009 season. CNBC also reported the news this morning.

We're still waiting for ESPN to "confirm" it.

An NBC press release added these comments from Madden, which were actual quotes that NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol transcribed from a conversation with him in person on Tuesday:

"It's time. I'm 73 years old. My 50th wedding anniversary is this fall. I have two great sons and their families and my five grandchildren are at an age now when they know when I'm home and, more importantly, when I'm not...

"It's been such a great ride... the NFL has been my life for more than 40 years, it has been my passion - it still is. I appreciate all of the people who are and were such an important part of the most enjoyable, most fun anyone could have... that great life with the teams, the players, the coaches, the owners, the League... my broadcasting partners Pat and Al... the production people and the fans...is still great... it's still fun and that's what it makes it hard and that's why it took me a few months to make a decision.

"I still love every part of it - the travel, the practices, the game film, the games, seeing old friends and meeting new people... but I know this is the right time."

For those who want to hear it straight from Madden, he's hosting his "Daily Madden" radio show for KCBS in the Bay Area at 8:15 a.m. and can be accessed at http://www.kcbs.com/pages/295323.php.

"I spent all day in the Bay Area yesterday with John and tried every way I could to make sure he was sure about his decision," said NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol. "And in true John Madden fashion, he was sure. He said it best when he simply said 'it's time' ...and I admire him for that.

"To put any speculation to rest, John has just decided to retire because it's time - nothing more, nothing less. We will never see or hear another man like John Madden. We will sorely miss him because he was the most fun guy ever to just hang out with."

Madden, who six days ago turned 73, started as a broadcaster with CBS, paired first with Bob Costas on a practice game from the L.A. Coliseum before he was teammed up with Vin Scully, in 1979. Two years later, he was partnered with Pat Summerall , and they networked their way to Fox's NFL coverage when the network took over the NFC package in 1995, and then worked for ABC on "Monday Night Football" (2002-2004) and NBC on the Sunday night games.

But there are legions of kids who know him only for helping them learn the nuances of the sport from playing his EA Sports-endorsed video games. The same kids are completely oblivious to the fact that Madden also played for the Philadelphia Eagles (1958) and coached the Oakland Raiders (1967-78, the last 10 of those years as the head coach, with a 103-32-7 record and a Hall of Fame induction).

Boom. Like that, he's bussing into the sunset.

A "news alert" from EA Sports today:

Sports broadcaster Erin Andrews will be featured as a sideline reporter in "EA SPORTS NCAA Football '10" for Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3. In addition to delivering in-game news straight from the gridiron, Andrews will also be featured in a major "NCAA Football '10" mode that will be revealed at a later date.

Andrews joins ESPN collegues Brad Nessler, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit (no Chris Fowler?) for the "NCAA Football '10", which "envelopes the excitement and pageantry of college football at its best.

In another attempt to legitimize her, EA has also asked Andrews for her opinions about the guys who'll soon be drafted by the NFL. Go here to see it here, kids (linked here). And watch the video of her above ... talking.

The game will hit stores on July 14. More info: www.ncaafootball10.com. More on the Andrews hiring (linked here).

No, she's not on the cover. Yet. She's just in the game.

Do you kid brother a favor. Get it for him when it comes out, but don't tell him she's in it. It'll be like the scene in "Animal House" where the kid reading the Playboy magazine suddenly has a real lady fly through the window and onto his bed.

"Thank you, God."

The book I: "This Day In Baseball: A Day-By-Day Record of the Events that Shaped the Game" by David Nemec and Scott Flatow (Taylor Trade, 330 pages, $15.95) Amazon has it, amazingly enough (linked here)

The book II: "Dodgers Journal: Year by Year & Day by Day with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers since 1884" by John Snyder (Clerisy Press, 797 pages, $29.95). Find it at the publisher's website (linked here).

The scoop: There are now websites that offer the same service that these books do -- NationalPasttime.com (linked here), for example. Or TodayInBaseballHistory.com (linked here). Or the BaseballLibrary.com (linked here). And calendars. And alamanacs.

So why have a phone-book sized publication, too? Why not. They've got cool covers. You can take it into the restroom. You can take it to a tailgate and fill your brain with numbers that you just can't get on the back of baseball cards any more.

And on this day, you can find in "This Day in Baseball" -- Jackie Robinson goes hitless in his ML debut with the Dodgers but handles 11 chances flawlessly at first base, his interim position.

No mention that he broke baseball's color barrier? Now that's savvy writing.

In the "Dodgers Journal," it says: Jackie Robinson makes his debut in a regular season major league game before an Opening day crowd of 25,623 at Ebbets Field. Playing first base and batting second, Robinson was hitless in three at-bats during a 5-3 victory over the Braves befroe being lifted in the ninth inning for defensive purposes by Howie Schultz. Facing Johnny Sain in his first plate appearance, Robinson received a rousing cheer from the crowd, then grounded out to third baseman Bob Elliott."

Also on this day, from "This Day in Baseball":

1958: In the first official ML game on the West Coast, the Giants' Ruben Gomez shuts out the Dodgers 8-0 at Seals Stadium. (Here's the box score link, with Don Drysdale as the losing pitcher, and only 23,000-plus in attendance, and the San Francisco Chronicle front page the next day)

1968: The Mets and Astros set an ML record for longest scoreless game before Bob Aspromonte's grounder eludes shortstop Al Weis, allowing the Astros to win 1-0 in the bottom of the 24th inning.

1998: Emergency repair work at Yankee Stadium creates a unique DBH at Shea Stadium when the Bombers shift their game to Queens, with the Yanks beating the Angels 6-3, followed by the Mets downing the Cubs 2-1 in the regularly scheduled night game.

1883: The maiden issue of Sporting Life, the first weekly paper devoted exclusively to sports, is published in Philadelphia with Francis Richter as editor.

1906: Brooklyn again circumvents local Blue Laws by charging no admission for a Sunday game against Boston and instead asking spectators to drop contributions in boxes as they enter the park.

1909: Red Ames of the Giants hurles what for many years is deemed the first Opening Day no-hitter in ML history but is no longer viewed as such by MLB because he gave up a hit in the 10th inning before losing 3-0 to Brooklyn in 13 frames.

1941: Cubs shortstop Lou Stringer sets a modern record when he makes four errors in his ML debut, but the Cubs still contrive to beat Pittsburgh 7-4 in their seasno opener.

1954: In the first AL or NL game in Baltimore since 1902, Orioles catcher Clint Courtney raps the first home run in Memorial Stadium as the O's beat the White Sox 3-1 in front of 46,354.

And in 1946, the year before Robinson's fateful day: With World War II over, most ML clubs announce an increase in ticket prices, with an average fee of $2 for box seats, $1.25 for general admisson and 60 cents for bleacher seats or standing room.

Bet you didn't know such things shared history with No. 42, eh?

As for the really thick Dodger version of transaction history, Snyder, who has a master's degree in history from the University of Cincinnati, merely expands on a series that he started documenting the history of the Reds, then added the Red Sox, Indians, Cardinals and White Sox.

The trick, of course, is to include stuff that fans wouldn't normally know about and pin a date on it.

Such as:

Sept. 11, 1961: Gordie Windhorn's first major league homer is a walk-off, pinch hit blast in the 11th inning that beats the Phillies 6-5 at the Memorial Coliseum. It was struck off Don Ferrarese, who entered the game in the fourth inning and pitched seven shutout innings before the game-winning homer. Before stepping to the plate, Windhorn confidently told teammates he would hit the ball over the fence. Windhorn hit two homers in a three-year big-league career spanning 95 games and 108 at bats.

Here's another to whet your appetite for the obscure and interesting:

June 17, 1885: The Dodgers intentionally make errors behind new pitcher John (Phenomenal) Smith and lose 18-5 to St. Louis at Washington Park (in New York). Smith was a 20-year-old from Allentown, Pennsylvania, playing in his first game with Brooklyn. He had previously appeared in two games with two different American Association teams in 1884, and lost both. Despite his lack of credentials, Smith gave himself the nickname "Phenomenal" and said that he was so good that he didn't need the help of his teammates. The Dodgers made 14 errors behind him, many on purpose. Shortstop Germany Smith (no relation) set a major-league record with seven errors. Catcher Jackie Hayes was credited with five passed balls. ... Smith had the distinction of playing for four different teams in his first four big-league games, and five clubs in his first seven contests, over four years. He finished in 1891 with a 54-74 record, became a long-time minor league player-manager and is credited with discovering Christy Mathewson.

Where else can you find that?

How they go down in the scorebook: 365 home runs. Plus one: On Feb. 29, 1972: Hank Aaron becomes the first $200,000-a-year ML player when he signs a three-year package with the Atlanta Braves. In 2008, the minimun required salary by an MLB player was $390,000. The average salary: $2.8 million.

ESPN2 will carry today's Mets-Padres game from the new Citi Field (4 p.m.) that will include the dedication of the Jackie Robinson Rotunda and a scheduled in-game interview with Rachel Robinson.

How are you going to remember Oscar de la Hoya, the boxer? Sitting there with his beautiful wife, Millie, trying to console him as he realizes he's really being honored and not holding some sort of Kobe-like damage control press conference?

Hardly.

First, the fact he had the media spell his name "De La Hoya," not de la Hoya. It made no sense to some of us, like those people who spell the former Dodgers' manager's name Tommy LaSorda. Or write about the NFL championship game as the Superbowl.

The question really should be, how can we forget Oscar? We can't. There's this huge statue honoring him in front of Staples Center, a place he fought ... once. And lost. Right near Magic Johnson and Wayne Gretzky, who never played in the arena. And even though he officially announced his retirement in true L.A. style on Tuesday -- with the mayor, George Lopez, Mickey Rourke hanging around ... he'll be around, as a promoter, in both boxing and mixed martial arts. Whatever sells. He's still the main event.

After 16 years as a pro fighter, after he won Olympic gold in 1992, De La Hoya was as perfect a combination of a power-packed puncher as he was an L.A. glamor boy, dividing a city of fans who either thought he didn't have enough Hispanic in him or he had too much Hollywood.

Born in East L.A. as a kid who loved to play baseball and ride a skateboard, yet raised in the TV spotlight, the 36-year-old lost four of his last seven fights as a pro -- including last December in Las Vegas in an overpromoted matchup against Manny Pacquiao -- after winning 223 (161 by knockout of his 229 fights as an amateur. (His fight legacy recorded at this link).

Last May, we were at the Home Depot Center to watch him grind out a 12-round decision against Steve Forbes, a tuneup for the Pacquiao. That was the last of his 39 pro wins (against six losses). It was hardly a reminder of his past heroics against the likes of Julio Cesar Chavez, Macho Camacho, Pernell Whitaker, Fernando Vargas ... or his losses to Shane Mosley, Bernard Hopkins or Floyd Mayweather Jr. Yet, the ladies didn't mind. They got to see him without his shirt, still looking chiseled.

The guy could make money for the sport, and still will. He'll hold the record for pay-per-view revenue, appearances. He launched a boxing reality TV show. He was nominated for a Spanish Grammy for his singing ability. He was an internet sensation when he somehow appeared in fishnet stockings.

"I want to be considered one of the great legends in boxing," he once said.

How about we go with "The Most Popular of All Time"?

For a kid who grew up in Hollywood seeking fame, Oscar was an appropriate name. As for de la Hoya ... some will translate that to English as meaning "of the valley" or "of the jewel."

One even translates "hoya" to "dimple."

Again, that seems appropriate. Just spell it right.

Comment here or at thomas.hoffarth@dailynews.com.

HBO's "Real Sports" host Bryant Gumbel, who last made news when he ripped the late Gene Upshaw for being a puppet for the NFL and not representing the NFLPA as he was supposed to, now offers this on Lance Armstrong that'll air at the end of tonight's episode (10 p.m.):

"Finally tonight a few words about Lance Armstrong, the cyclist whom many Americans view as a champion and many Frenchmen have labeled a tricheur, or cheater. Having won the Tour de France a record seven times under a never ending cloud of suspicion, Armstrong is saying that he may not be allowed to compete for an eighth title this July as a result of his latest run-in with the drug police.

"Those who buy his act and think Lance is being victimized by foreigners who can't stomach an American's superiority, will no doubt see his exclusion from this year's Tour de France as patently unfair. Others will surely see karma at work and feel that his banishment has been a long time coming. Either way, it seems that Lance Armstrong may have finally given French officials good reason to tell him not just au revoir, but also bon debarras. That's French for good riddance."

The book: "The Baseball Talmud: The Definitive Position-by-Position Ranking of Baseball's Chosen Players"

The author: Howard Megdal

How to find it: Harper, Collins, 307 pages with index, $22.99

Where we'd go looking for it: On the publisher's official site (linked here), or else Amazon (linked here) and Powells (linked here).

The scoop: Megdal, who covers baseball for the New York Observer, has such a keen observation about the game -- and his Jewish roots -- that makes this a blast to go through front to back without much effort and plenty of enjoyment. When he speaks of those who played for "The Tribe," it has nothing to do with the Cleveland Indians. Although there is a little crossover.

To have the gall to argue who's not only the greatest Jewish baseball player of all time, but then create the all-time best Jewish team -- and predict how that list will change in 2019 -- almost seems like the creation of an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

"If there's one thing Jews like to do, it's argue," Megdal says in the intro. "Many of you reading this book are nodding sagely in argreement. Some of you, however, rose to your feet indignantly to dispute my blatant generalization. Either way, my point is proven."

This, the book came from Megdal and his friends one day at a batting cage with his college intramural softball friends when one declared that Hank Greenberg, not Sandy Koufax, was the most valuable Jewish player in major league history.

(We'll pause for Dodger fans to try to contain themselves.)

"Our center fielder, a Jewish sociology professor, reacted as if my friend had defended supermarket challah," Megdal continues.

With modern advances in research and a sabermetric rule to help with some rankings, Megdal decided he'd make his own case for the all-time Jewish team, knowing that there were 16,696 players in Major League History as of July, 2008,and fewer than 160 were Jewish -- less than 1 percent.

Taking anyone who is self-identified as Jewish -- including David Newhan, the Pepperdine grad who attended a Jesuit school yet considers himself a Messianic Jew and celebrates Passover and Hanukkah.

The lists:

Megdal's list of the Greatest Jewish Baseball Player:
1. Hank Greenberg (based on Baseball Prospectus' WARP3 metric)
2. Sandy Koufax ("his dominance is unquestioned and whose strikeouts are completely verifiable).
3. Lou Boudreau (the former "Tribe" Hall of Fame shortstop who could statistically be better than Koufax)
4. Shawn Green (yup, the former Dodger, but "religion goes only so far when your defense has deteriorated as much as Green's has," Megdal writes)
5. Buddy Myer
6. Al Rosen
7. Sid Gordon
8. Ken Holtzman (who has more wins as a left-handed pitcher in his career than Koufax, 174-165)
9. Harry Danning
10. Mike Lieberthal.

Megdal's projected list for 2019:
1. Greenberg
2. Koufax
3. Ryan Braun
4. Boudreau
5. Green
6. Kevin Youkilis
7. Ian Kinsler
8. Myer
9. Rosen
10. Gordon

Some of Megdal's arguments further arguments:
== On why Danning, who played for the N.Y. Giants from 1933-42, is his highest rated Jewish catcher of all time ahead of Lieberthal, the Westlake High grad who ended his career last year with the Dodgers: "Lieberthal played in a far richer offensive era, when extra-base hits were as plentiful as the corned beef at the Second Avenue Deli." For the record, current Dodgers backup catcher Brad Ausmus is No. 3 on the catcher list, and former Dodger star Steve Yeager is No. 4, and another former Dodger, Norm Sherry, is No. 8.

== Even though Esquire magazine did an all-Jewish team in 1976 and named Rod Carew its second baseman, Megdal won't include him on his list. Because he's not Jewish. Even though he has a place in Adam Sandler's "Hanukkah Song." "He married a Jewish woman, but he did not convert," Megdal writes. "He doesn't qualify any more than my childhood friend David Lopez qualified for complaining to his mother about being servied 'goyische corned beef' in eighth grade." Besides, Megdal could probably make a better case for Buddy Myer (1925-'41 with Washington and Boston) as the No. 1 keystone sacker.

== Other names you may recognize: Mike Epstein (No. 2 best at first base, former Fairfax High standout who played for the Angels in '73-'74); Greg Goossen (No. 7 best at first base, who became a stunt man/actor after his career and still lives in Hollywood); Jimmy Reese (No. 6 best second baseman, known better as a long-time Angels coach); Ryan Braun (No. 2 best left fielder, the Granada Hills High grad whose season as a 23-year-old was similiar to that of Hank Greenberg's); Gabe Kapler (No. 4 best center fielder, the former Taft High standout); Al Silvera (No. 8 left-fielder, the former Fairfax High star who went to USC and played for Cincinnati in 1955-56); Richard Conger (No. 9 right-handed starter, a one-and-done player at UCLA in the late '30s before signing with Detroit and ending his career with the Los Angeles Angels of the PCL before he served in WWII); Scott Radinsky (No. 2 left-handed reliever and former Simi Valley High standout); Scott Schoeneweis (No. 3 left-handed reliever who came up in the Angels' organization in the late '90s); Larry Sherry (No. 1 right-handed reliever who pitched for the Dodgers from '58-'63 and the Angels in '68); Al Levine (No. 2 right-handed reliever, who played for the Angels from '99-'02); Lloyd Allen (No. 6 right-handed reliever, 12th overall choice in the 1968 draft by the California Angels, ahead of Gary Matthews, Bill Buckner and Cecil Cooper).

How it goes down in the scorebook: With the advance praise for the book provided by ESPN's Jeremy Schaap, author John Eisenberg and senior Sports Illustrated writer L. Jon Wertheim, we'll let Megdal get the save here with his last paragraph: "Let this ... book ring out in response to the well-known "Airplane!" gag about Jewish athletes. In baseball alone, there are more than just a pamphlet. I encourage you, should anyone make that joke to you -- throw this book at them. And I don't mean rhetorically. Actually throw this book at them and say, 'Does this feel like a pamphlet? Well? Does it?"

They gush, because they can.

Yes, he's the greatest baseball broadcaster that we've ever heard. He's a connection to the Dodgers that no one else could ever provide for the fans of L.A.

He's the heart and soul of the city, said Charley Steiner, when introducing him to throw out the first pitch of Monday's home opener.

But the constant reminders of how great we have it for having 81-years-young Vin Scully on our TV sets can get ... a bit over the top. Unlike something he's ever done behind the mike.

Take a lesson from Scully. Tone it down a bit. Put it into perspective.

Some of today's reports from the ballyard about how his presence set the tone for the day, captured the event perfectly ... we actually cringed.

Maybe because of what happened in Philadelphia -- where Harry Kalas arrived at the park to call the Phillies game, collapsed in the press box and later died, at age 73 -- some L.A. media folk got a jolt of what it might be like to have that happen to us. Kind of like what it was like to have Chick Hearn taken from us after the 2002 championship season.

Maybe in these times of trouble and worry and anxiety, we look to Scully for that comforting voice that everything's OK, even if the Dodgers aren't winning. But that's really putting a lot of pressure on one man to perform something more than simply delivering a story and the ball-strike count to millions of TV viewers each game.

Perhaps you've read the transcript of what Scully said last Thursday, when he was doing the Dodgers-Padres game from San Diego just hours after the news reported on the death of Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart:

"If I may speak for every member of the Dodger organization, our heartfelt and deepest sympathies to the mother and family of Nick Adenhart, and to every member in the Angels organization, for the untimely accident and death of young Nick last night at the tender age of twenty-two. Nick, from Maryland, had pitched six scoreless innings and was in a car with three friends, and a driver apparently went through a red light and T-boned the car, killing three of the four, including Nick, and one other member is in critical condition. And if there is one thing I've learned in all my years -- and I haven't learned much -- but the one thing I've learned: Don't even waste your time trying to figure out life."

It's a spin off of one of Scully's great lines: "If you want to make God smile, tell him your plans."

If you want to make Scully smile, tell him about a great book you've read lately, or a piece of music you've heard. Sing him a tune from "Phantom of the Opera," but only if you can hold a note. Tell him about your golf game.

Maybe the hesistant reaction we have is because we've been privy to visits to the broadcast booth hours before the first pitch, just to watch Scully put on his reading glasses, pour over notes to prepare, trade stories with cameraman/lighting director Rob Menschel, stage manager Boyd Robertson or producer Brad Zager, and accept visitors by the handful.

It's no wonder Scully tries to avoid all the adulation heaped upon him simply for trying to get from the Dodger Stadium club level elevator to the broadcast booth each day. The dash he makes to escape once the game's over has become an Olympian feat.

Giving Scully love is a marvelous thing. But maybe we ought to keep it in perspective and not make it seem like we're trying to out-do each other in chronicling the final chapter of his career with another obvious tribute -- even if many assume Year 60 with the organization will be the last time we hear his final calls.

Got an opinion? Leave it here or email it to thomas.hoffarth@dailynews.com.

The book: "Odd Man Out: A Year on the Mound with a Minor League Misfit"

The author: Matt McCarthy

How to find it: Penguin, 304 pages, $25.95

Where we'd go looking for it: Here's a link to Barnes & Noble (linked here)

The scoop: The book has taken a somewhat life of its own, in a James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces" that has at least been spared from an Oprah Winfrey tongue lashing.

The story of McCarthy's trip through the Angels' minor-league system -- particular, the rookie-league Provo team in the heart of Mormon country -- has already the fish-out-of-water plot for a Yale graduate with a degree in molecular biophysics. Since the Angels though enough of the left-hander to draft him in 2002 (in the 21st round), McCarthy figured, what the heck, give it a shot.

You don't need an Ivy League brain to figure that this opportunity only comes once in a lifetime. There'll be plenty of things to fission things together later.

So, he writes the book about his one summer as a pro -- about playing with racist, steroids-taking teammates, pitching for a profane, unbalanced manager (Tom Kotchman) and observing obscene behavior and speech that in some ways reinforce the popular image of wild professional ballplayers. That's enough to raise some eyebrows.

On Feb. 16, Sports Illustrated did a long excerpt of it. During a Feb. 17 Q-and-A with USA Today (linked here), McCarthy, now a first-year resident at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center focusing on cancer patients, says he realizes that what took place was seven years ago, but he took good notes.

"My senior year in college, it looked like I was going to get drafted, so a lot of my friends and family said, 'Document what this is like, it's going to be such an interesting experience for you.' I think they were saying that because they realized it was going to be a short-lived experience for me. So I went out there keeping this journal. I kept a very detailed account of what was going on. And the season ended, I got cut and my career was over -- and it wasn't until a couple of years passed and I realized what a special experience this had been for me. I watched to see what happened to the guys I played with -- all kinds of things. And as the years passed, I started thinking about it, and it was actually when Bobby Jenks recorded the last out in 2005 World Series and he was the hero that I thought this is such an interesting situation.
I wrote a manuscript and handed it to a friend of mine who writes for Sports Illustrated and he loved it, and things started rolling from there."

At the time, some players who'd caught wind of it were already saying there were things in it that weren't true. And, for Angel fans, that included players like Joe Saunders, Ervin Santana, Erick Aybar and Tony Reagins, who's now the team's GM.

On March 2, the New York Times had a piece (linked here) that questioned some of the facts presented in the story, things that didn't synch up right with dates.

Said McCarthy: "I think that there are a handful of details that I did my best to re-create. For the most part, it's a detailed account of what was going on. If somebody comes out and says, 'I would never have said that, therefore it's not true,' I can't do anything about that."

Kotchman, the newspaper said, wrote a 13-page letter to Penguin publishing alleging inaccuracies and requesting it be examined before publication.

On March 9, McCarthy defended his book again in USA Today (linked here): "It bothers me to have been careless on some of these small details, especially when I was painstaking about most others. ... I trusted my notes and my memory on some smaller details, and there were obviously a few instances in which I didn't have things quite right. That's my fault, and I'll take the blame. ... But if people are waiting for me to break down and confess that I made everything up, it's not going to happen."

On March 13, David Davis also had a piece on the authenticity of the book for the L.A. Times (linked here)

McCarthy's parenty company publisher, Viking, said it's likely a revised version of the book will be released, according to USA Today.

How it goes down in the scorebook: Not so much like Jim Bouton's "Ball Four," despite the intent. But with a couple of grains of salt, there's probably some truthiness to it. And that alone provides some kind of insight into the fact that stupid boys will be stupid boys.

By Ira Podell
Associated Press Hockey Writer

NHL.com (linked here) is getting its own extreme makeover for the postseason.

Starting Monday, one day after the end of the regular season and two before the start of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the NHL's signature Web site will have a totally new look and feel through thePORTAL at NHL.com.

Regular users of the site will notice the changes, but will still be able access player profiles, stats and video clips, as always, but the new format will highlight vast playoff coverage up front.

"Everything is still there," said Andre Mika, NHL senior vice president of broadband and new media. "All we've done is make it easier to get to strictly playoff content."

We've got the entire Q-and-A with Jon Weisman in today's editions of the Daily News (linked here)...

The book: "100 Things Dodgers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die"

The author: Jon Weisman (forward by Peter O'Malley)

How to find it: Triumph, 299 pages, $22.95

Where we'd go looking for it: It should be available at Dodger Stadium, but if not, find it at Amazon (linked here) or Barnes & Noble (linked here)

The scoop: Please, don't die before you read this, or you'll deprive yourself of an exceptionally entertaining read on Dodger history, culled by someone who should know, having started the DodgerThoughts.com blog that should be daily reading for any fan of the franchise. Or, non-fan looking for some insight into what to dislike about the way they operate.

Weisman, a former L.A. Daily News sportswriter who works now as an associate editor at Variety, has an objective viewpoint and experienced background in documenting the franchise's timeline, but also a fan's thirst for more knowledge to find out why things are and unafraid to give an opinion about why things are.

Such as, No. 91: Resist the Suite.

"Let's not lie to each other. The luxury suites at Dodger Stadium ... they're luxurious. ... If you hang out with a bunch of friends of colleagues -- one and the same if you're lucky enough -- a suite at Dodger Stadium is a pretty nifty way to do it ... But suites and the sport really aren't a good fit for each other. There's barely any way to enjoy both at once. To take advantage of what the suite offers is to stuff the ballgame itself into a hall closet, like the toys you hastily hid away when your mom wanted your room clean. The best vantage point for a game is in a fairly conventional seat on te balcony and requires turning your bak on the suite, to the extent that it becomes just a glorified hot dog stand. And to delight in the sutie's accoutrements, to wallow in them, necessarily pulls you away from the game. It just doesn't quite work."

And as for the All-You-Can-Eat Right Field Pavilion:

No. 96: Evil

"An unlimited buffet at a baseball game? Are the Dodgers trying to kill us? Or just make a killing?"

No. 86 deals with the Dodgers parting with Ross Porter, but sheds light on the fact that he was willing to share the microphone with Don Drysdale when he joined the team in 1988. Drysdale was used to working with a partner during previous baseball broadcasting jobs, and Porter was open to it as well. So during the first inning of a spring training game in Vero Beach, they worked together. After they went to a commercial, owner Peter O'Malley called the booth and told Drysdale it was a one-voice broadcast. Drysdale took up the issue later with O'Malley, who stood firm on his "that is the way we do it here" approach, made most famous by Vin Scully. Now, of course, the Dodgers have had a two-man radio booth for the last couple of years, as well as a two-man TV booth in games Scully doesn't work.

No. 11: Chavez Ravine.

Where did the name come from?

Weisman cites Bob Timmermann, a senior librarian at the L.A. Central Library, who discovered back in the 1880s, a L.A. County Supervisor named Julian Chavez owned a hilly tract of land north of downtown and the place eventually took his name. "For the most part, it was not a part of the city that most people even knew existed or hwo to get to," Timmermann wrote.

Yes, we could go on about something new we found out about the Dodgers in all 100 chapters. Even No. 1 on Jackie Robinson and No. 2 on Vin Scully.

The beauty of Weisman's lengthy research leads him to list No. 100 as a resource for more Dodger information, starting with the L.A. Public Library computer access. His bibliography of books, articles, documents, magazines, newspapers, websites and TV/film available on the team is invaluable for anyone who wants to dig into more.

How it goes down in the scorebook: A large "W" for the Jon Weisman Marching & Chowder Society.

Did you know: Triumph also has an issue of "100 Things ...." for fans of the Red Sox, Mets, Tigers and Rockies. Nothing yet on the Angels. Apparently, with them, you can die and it's OK. We're waiting for one on the Seattle Pilots.

The book: "Bob Feller's Little Blue Book of Baseball Wisdom"

The author: Bob Feller (with Burton Rocks)

How to find it: Triumph Books, 176 pages, $22.95

Where we'd go looking for it: Try Powell's for this one (linked here)

The scoop: In 2001, McGraw-Hill published something called "Bob Feller's Little Black Book of Baseball Wisdom" (160 pages, $18.95). Both Feller's and Rocks' names were attached to it (linked here).

In that, the former Cleveland Indians' Hall of Famer talks about things like (linked here) growing up in Van Meter, Iowa, this "Field of Dreams" his dad built for him, family values ... etc.

Eight years later, different publisher, same authors. The table of contents have it broken down into "nine tenents for success," which include ...

1. Family Values
2. Hard Word
3. Loyalty
4. Knowing the Value of a Dollar
5. Self-Confidence
6. Practicing the Fundamentals
7. Leadership and Teamwork
8. Consistency
9. Selflessness

The advice ... pretty much the same yarns. Same parables. Just a different order. And he forgets to tell you to change the oil in your car regularily.

Bottom line: We think he's taken tenant No. 4 and kind of, you know ...

For a guy who's now 90, and still a lot cranky when we've heard him talk about baseball and his legacy, we don't begrudge him from a little repurposing his own information. Especially if maybe he forgot he wrote a book about the same stuff a few years ago.

One antedote: Page 155 of the new book, Feller writes about being in attendance at the game in Yankee Stadium when Babe Ruth, then very sick, gave his farewell address. That was because the game, in 1948, was against Feller's Indians.

"Babe used my bat to prop himself up -- and it wasn't done by choice, though I'd liked it if it was. Babe was terminally ill, and knew his dire fate. ... He staggered inside the tunnel, making it to the dugout. He then took about three steps, approached the bat rack, and selected from three bats. The bad he selected was used as a crutch to lean against as he walked to home plate. That bat was my bat. I felt honored, even if it was just coincidence, that he was using my bat. After the ceremony was over, he walked back to the dugout using the bat, and put it back in the rack. Then he paused and signed it, returning it once again to the rack. I was elated."

Now, the real Feller comes out in the rest of the story, which is given parenthetically ..

"I treasured that bat, and yet one of my very own teammates stole that bat from me. It wasn't accidental; it was stolen. I never saw it again until famed memorabilia collector Barry Halper put it on the market. I bought it back later for $95,000."

That a baby.

How it goes down in the scorebook: Stolen base.

You ever read "Harvey Penick's Little Red Book: Lessons and Teachings from a Lifetime of Golf"? (1992, linked here) He followed that up with "The Game for a Lifetime: More Lessons and Teachings" (1996, linked here). Then there was: "The Wisdom of Harvey Penick" (1997, linked here). Then, in 1999, came "For All Who Love the Game: Lessons and Teachings for Women" ...

You see the potential for Bob Feller here?

The Associated Press

And what have we learned about the first abbreviated week of the 2009 baseball season, one that has brought the Dodgers a little less magic than expected and delivered the Angels things much more tragic than necessary?

== That there is no such thing as a jinx, curse, hex, whammy, evil spell, bad luck, tough breaks of nasty karma hanging over Angel Stadium, just very bad things happening to extremely good people who, by irony, wear halos?

== That Mike Scioscia best carry a heavily blessed rosary when trying to figure out the future of his starting rotation, and check to see if Jon Garland really did get away in the offseason?

== That Howie Kendrick really could win a batting title someday?

== That perhaps when the power of your lineup has come from the No. 7 and 8 spots, you really should consider Matt Kemp and Casey Blake for, maybe, the No. 5 hole?

== That the less we know about Ronald Belisario, the better ...– until he'’s ready to replace Randy Wolf in the starting rotation?

== That Blake DeWitt may be the No. 3 catcher by July?

== That we should really appreciate the goodness of Orlando Hudson until he becomes injured?

== Who'd President Barry have in the women's NCAA tournament, or did he simply ignore it like everyone else?

== Has Russell Westbrook given Jrue Holiday a false sense of NBA security?

== Wouldn't it have been the stuff of headlines if UConn beleaguered hoops coach Jim Calhoon decided to retire, not to simply stick around another season?

== Does it still count as winning the Wooden Award if a defiant John Wooden purposely doesn't show up to present it any more?

== The Kings' furlough finally ends today?

== Has Zach Randolph found his way home yet?

== If we stopped asking Jose Canseco about MLB steroid use, would he stop making educated guesses that seem to be right? Does Manny Ramirez have any reason to start finding a slander-specialized lawyer?

== Fuzzy Zoeller has allowed his 25-year-old daughter, the fetchin' Gretchen, to lug his bag around Augusta this weekend? When does Tiger talk his 1-year-old Sam into doing the same?

== Have you heard the radio spots for the upcoming Galaxy-AC Milan kickball exhibition at Home Depot Center, with tickets "as low as 40 bucks?" Each? Could you imagine yourself willing to spend more than $10 each?

By Justin Pope
Associated Press Education Writer

RALEIGH, N.C. -- College sports fans, be careful of the company you keep on Facebook. You might get yourself -- and the program you support -- in trouble.

That was the lesson this week for Taylor Moseley, a North Carolina State freshman who expressed a common-enough opinion on campus when he started the Facebook group called "John Wall PLEASE come to NC STATE!!!!"

More than 700 people signed up for the group encouraging Wall -- a local standout and the nation's No. 1 basketball recruit (pictured here) -- to pick the Wolfpack by national signing day next week.

But the NCAA says such sites, and dozens more like them wooing Wall and other top recruits, violate its rules. More than just cheerleading boards, the NCAA says the sites are an attempt to influence the college choice of a recruit.

Moseley got a cease and desist letter from N.C. State's compliance director, Michelle Lee, warning of "further action" if he failed to comply. In an interview Friday, Lee said that people who act as boosters but fail to follow recruiting guidelines could face penalties such as being denied tickets or even being formally "disassociated" from the athletic program.

We should be on spring break from the Media Learning Center for the Advancement of Understanding Words and Things (still, no title sponsor), but we kinda did that last week, so we're playing catchup in the World of Things We've Learned spanning the last 14 days.

== If you weren't awaked by the news of Nick Adenhart's death on Thursday morning, by all means, relive it: (linked here)

== If you didn't know HBO was renewing "Eastbound & Down," here's the info (linked here)

== We haven't tried to ignore the recent U.S. rights fees paid out for European soccer ... but we seem to have done a poor job in writing about how Fox Soccer Channel has become the champion of the Champions League, not ESPN (linked here).

== Clark Kellogg isn't just empty calories for breakfast ... but not far from it, and those who agree: The New York Times (linked here) Yup, we already miss Billy Packer's instant grouchy opinions, not wanting to wait for a Sunday night to hear 'em.

== John Wooden's Def Poetry Jam for G (linked here) would be nice to play in his absence tonight at the Wooden Awards.

== What about a 24-hour Olympic channel, with Comcast comandering it? (linked here)

== Dick Vitale, Barry Melrose, Lee Corso, Charles Barkley, Troy Aikmanand Phil Simms, among the 66 guys we should emulate? Esquire says so (via Deadspin.com). ... OK, Springsteen and the Dalai Lama, we get... The Vitale-Melrose-Corso entry is combined, at No. 49, with this: "They love their jobs, and as each of them will tell you: It's hard out there for a pimp."

== Jack Edwards, the former ESPN guy now calling Boston Bruins games, probably won't be back to the World Wide Leader in forever, but you can't blame him for stating the truth (linked here) about ESPN's lack of NHL coverage and its stale "SportsCenter" format.

== How unaffordable daily baseball coverage is for even the New York Times (linked here).

== Someone's reading a newspaper in Michigan (linked here)

== Someone's snapping photos of Bill Macdonald on their cellphone (linked here)

== And did you get a chance to read the rest of the media notes we collected this week? (linked here)

This one seemed most appropriate to release at time when Angel hearts are heavy and the "spliter" really feels like it won't go away:

The book: "Splinters"

The author: Rex Hudler, forward by Joe Torre

How to find it: Self published, 176 pages, $20

Where we'd go looking for it: www.RexHudler.com, proceeds go to his "Team Up For Down Syndrome" foundation. (When Hudler refers to children with "Down's," including his own, he says they have "Up's" because those kind of kids are never down.)

The scoop: God has given us all a gift with the Hudman. His gift back to us is a book that explains, in many ways, how he's become the ball of energy that you see and hear on Angels' telecasts.

The title of the book comes from the fact that everyone gets "splinters" in their lives, it's just how you react to them that determines what kind of person you are.

Since we don't (for the time being) have an audio version of this, we'll be content with the written word, hearing Hudler speak it in our heads as we laugh along with all the crazy things that have happened in his life -- made humorous all because of how the very religious Hudler describes them.

Maybe this explains it, on page 72:

"I did take a lot of teasing from my teammates though. I was a very emotional player because I put so much into playing the game all out. I remember the first time I ever got choked up playing baseball. It was when I made my first catch at Yankee Stadium in front of 56,000 people. I made a diving catch against the Orioles my rookie year, and heard the roar of 56,000 and I immediately felt a giant knot in my throat.

"Like most players, I put my heart and soul into the game. Between the lines, I would give up everything I had to get my team a win. Some people say there's no crying in baseball, but that's not true. These were tears of joy!"

He played under Billy Martin, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and Terry Francona. He was teammates with Cal Ripken, Ozzie Smith (who he once nearly strangled while breaking up a double play as a member of the Montreal Expos) and even Barry Bonds during one spring training before he was released by the Giants. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner hated the fact he had to trade Hudler, one of his most favorite players. He called Jim Rome's radio show to announce his retirement after 21 years in pro ball, while he was with the Cleveland Indians' Triple-A team in Buffalo trying to play his back into the bigs in 1981.

The chapter that may hit home even more, however, is Chapter 20, "Building New Dreams," about the arrival of his son, Cade, born in 1996, who has Down syndrome.

"At that time, I felt a deep splinter," he writes.

It was only after teammate Jim Abbott told him that "miracles can happen ... help him reach his full potential," did Hudler awaken to what was in store for him and his family.

Hudler also writes how at the end of his career, he nearly signed with the Dodgers, but GM Fred Claire said he couldn't match the two-year, $2.8 million deal that the Philadelphia Phillies offered.

Too bad. It would have been worth the investment for Dodger fans in the late '90s with a 36-year-old utility player.

Two other "splinters" Hudler doesn't skirt in covering: A brain hemmorage in 2000, and the marijuana possession arrest in Kansas City in '03. He says he's gotten past them with the help of a Bible verse from James 1:1 "Consider it pure joy my brothers, when we face trials of many kinds. The testing of our faith will develope patience and perseverance that we may not be lacking in anything."

How it goes down in the scorebook: Better than a 1.8. And we'll explain:

In the Dickson Baseball Dictionary (revised and released last month, and we'll get around to reviewing it later this month), under the entry for the word "zone rating," the description reads:

"An estimate of a player's fielding efficiency, comparing the number of plays a fielder makes to the number of balls hit into the zone he patrols. The raw data for zone rating is gathered by slicing the playing field into a set of zones and assigning each zone to the player within reach of balls hit into that zone. It is a variation of 'defensive average,' except that until 2000, fielded balls that were turned into double plays counted as two successful fielding plays, which resulted in zone ratings higher than a 'perfect 1.0' -- 1.8 was achieved by second baseman Rex Hudler in 1996."

Again, who else but Hudler could rank higher than perfection?

Post-script: One of Hud's favorite lines is also a vocal point of his foundation to raise money for Downs Syndrome: "Be a fountain, not a drain." But the quote we enjoy most for some reason was included in Charlie Jones' book back in '02 called "If Winning Were Easy, Everyone Would Do It: 365 Motivational Quotes For Athletes."

Says Hud: "The cream always rises to the top. I'm a good example of that. Not exactly whipped cream. I'm kind of an ugly foam."

There's nothing ugly about Hudler. Enjoy.

You've chomped on today's media column. In theory. (Here's the link, we think).

You need more to get bulked up for the Easter egg hunt. In reality.

We supply the marshmallow-like creamy filling:

== KSPN-AM (710) has live coverage of the Wooden Award, for college basketball's top player, tonight at 5 p.m. hosted by Tommy Hawkins and Steve Mason.

== While 66 percent of the country (including Southern California) see Fox's coverage of the Angels-Red Sox game from Angel Stadium (Saturday, 1 p.m.), Houston-St. Louis (with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver) goes to 19 percent of the country and Minnesota-Chicago White Sox (with Thom Brennaman and Mark Grace) goes to 16 percent.

== The new MLB Network has also added a schedule of Saturday evening games, but because the opener involves the Dodgers (at Arizona), it'll be blacked out in Southern California.

== TBS' first Sunday morning MLB telecast features the New York Mets at Florida (10 a.m.) with Chip Caray and Ron Darling.

== Next week, ESPN made sure it has the first two games from the Mets' new Citi Field, sending Dan Shulman, Orel Hershiser and Steve Phillips out there for Tuesday's game against San Diego (4 p.m.), with Erin Andrews flitting around the park with a mike, and on Wednesday (4 p.m.) with Dave O'Brien, Joe Morgan and Rick Sutcliffe.

== A documentary on the life and frozen times of Ted Williams is on the HBO schedule to debut on Wednesday, July 15 -- the 70th anniversary of his rookie season. "The Kid: The Life and Death of Ted Williams" airs on that otherwise dead day after the MLB All-Star Game.

Among those interviewed: former President George H.W. Bush; Jerry Coleman, Bobby Doerr, Bob Feller, Pumpsie Green, Tony Gwynn and Johnny Pesky, plus journalists Richard Ben Cramer, Leigh Montville, Dan Shaughnessy and John Underwood and sportscaster Joe Buck.

The documentary will also air in the middle of HBO's annual film festival, when it screens documentaries from its library on eight consecutive Mondays during June and July.

== The FSN series "Sports Science," recently nominated for five Sports Emmy Awards, returns Sunday (9 p.m.) with an episode that includes the Galaxy's Edson Buddle (trying to determine which hit is harder, a blocked punt or a soccer ball to the head) and former UCLA star and Minnesota Timberwolves rookie Kevin Love, who'll try to break the record for longest shot - 89 feet.

== The '09 Sundance Film Festival selected "Thrilla In Manila" documentary, which tells the story of the third Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier heavyweight title fight in October, 1975, mostly through the eyes of Frazier, debuts on HBO (Saturday, 10 p.m.) following the network coverage of Winky Wright-Paul Williams live from Las Vegas (7 p.m., with Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant and Emanuel Steward) and the first episode of "Pacquiao/Hatton 24/7" leading up their May 2 junior welterweight fight (9:30 p.m.) Former Phillipines first lady Imelda Marcos is interviewed in "Thrilla In Manila," produced and directed by John Dower ("Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos") and narrated by Liev Schreiber.

== You'd expect the NFL Network to go bezerk when the annual announcement of the regualr-season schedule is announced -- Tuesday, 4 p.m., also on NFL.com -- but ESPN has jumped into the fray with a SportsCenter special called "Schedule Release" that will break it all down as well (Tuesday, 4-5 p.m. on ESPN2, continuing from 5-7 pm. on ESPN). Trey Wingo, Ron Jaworski, Trent Dilfer, Merril Hoge and Tim Hasselbeck are joined in the white noise with NFL players such as DeMarcus Ware (Dallas Cowboys), Joey Porter (Miami Dolphins), Brian Dawkins (Denver Broncos) and Richard Seymour (New England Patriots).

== Samuel L. Jackson has been recruited picked assigned graciously agreed to return as the host for the ESPY Awards, scheduled to appear at the Nokia Theatre on July 15 (then be televised on July 19). Jackson hosted the ceremony in 1999, 2001 and 2002.

== HBO's latest edition of "Real Sports" (debuting Tuesday, 10 p.m.) includes a profile of Philadelphia Phillies manager Charlie Manuel with Frank Deford, a piece on recent killings involving football players in Hampton Roads, Virginia, and an update on a 2002 story about the call to ban Dodgeball in schools, which has currently reached the point (according to Bernard Goldberg) that efforts to ban games like tag and, in some cases, physical contact between students altogether are moving forward.

== Meanwhile, ESPN's investigative series "E:60" also resumes Tuesday (4 p.m.), including a look at Vince McMahon and the innerworkings of the WWE on the 25th anniversary of WestleMania. A second story labeled an "exclusive investigation" checks how the air quality in ice hockey and ice skating rinks across the country poses a risk to young hockey players and figure skaters.

== Versus reports its coverage of the season-opening IndyCar Series event in St. Petersburg last Sunday did a 0.3 national rating and two million viewers.

== ESPN2 dispatches JP Dellacamera, John Harkes and Allen Hopkins covering the Galaxy-Chivas USA contest from the Home Depot Center (Saturday, 7:30 p.m.)

== ESPNU has the Hobey Baker Award ceremony (today, 4 p.m.) leading into Saturday's NCAA hockey championship final (4 p.m., ESPN, with Gary Thorne, Barry Melrose and Clay Matvick)

== College bowling? If you had to list the eight-team field for the NCAA Women's Bowling Championships from Super Bowl Lanes in Canton, Mich., would it include Arkansas State, Central Missouri, Delaware State, Fairleigh Dickinson, Nebraska, New Jersey City University, Vanderbilt and, the defending champion, the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore? That's who's in for the coverage on ESPNU and ESPN2 (Saturday, 5 p.m.), and Beth Mowins and Carolyn Ballard are the lucky broadcasters.

AND THE CLOSING ARGUMENT:

== If they could do virtual ads on the backstops of baseball diamonds, why not the glass at hockey games.

That Subway ad above (from AwfulAnnouncing.com via BroadStreetHockey.com) from an MSG broadcast of a Rangers game pushes the envelope more in non-subliminal advertising that really is distracting .... of course, that's what many said about the FoxBox score-and-time graphic during NFL games at first. Then we became used to it.

Can you get used to this? Or is the fact that ESPN not showing NHL highlights even make a difference?

In light of the Angels postponing their contest tonight against Oakland, Fox Sports West has agreed to re-air Wednesday night's telecast to honor Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart, killed earlier this morning in a traffic accident in Fullerton.

The broadcast will start tonight at 7 p.m. with Bill Macdonald joined by Mark Gubicza, Rory Markas, Rex Hudler, Steve Physioc and Jose Mota. At about 7:15, the game will re-air through the sixth inning, which Adenhart pitched. At about 9:15 p.m., Macdonald will come back on the air recap the events of the last 24 hours.

Lou Brissie visits patients at a VA hospital in Augusta, Ga., in 2007, from a story by ESPN.com's Elizabeth Merrill (linked here)

The book: "The Corporal Was a Pitcher: The Courage of Lou Brissie"

The author: Ira Berkow (forward by Tom Brokaw)

How to find it: Triumph Books, $24,95. 253 pages

Where we'd go looking for it: Here it is on Barnes And Noble (linked here) and our favorite place, Powell's (linked here).

The scoop: The book is inspired by a Red Smith column that Berkow included in a 1960 anthology of his work from the New York Herald Tribune.

But any kid who read the backs of baseball cards must have known something about this left-handed pitcher. The book's back cover actually shows a Topps baseball card from '52, when Brissie was with Cleveland, and it reads: "When Lou pitches, he wears a steel brace and a shin guard on his left leg - the result of a serious wound while serving in the Army in Italy."

Roll the story back a couple years, and there's a 16-year-old pitching in the textile baseball leagues in Ware Shoals. He was impressive enough to attract an offer from the Dodgers, but his father urged him to turn it down and work out in front of Connie Mack. Later, he pitched for two years at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina.

At age 20, Brissie had his leg shattered in Dec. '44 during a German attack. Doctors suggested amputation.

"I'm a ballplayer. I can't play on one leg," he said.

Brissie had a "deal" with Philadelphia A's manager Connie Mack - he paid for Brissie's three years of college and he'd join the A's in 1945. Then, the war happened.

"Our club is still in need of a left-handed pitcher, only hope you will be where you can still do a little work when you join our club," Mack sent him a telegram during the war. "The fans will forget such pitchers as Rube Waddell, Eddie Plank and (Lefty) Grove."

And Brissie ended up pitching in the 1949 All-Star game. He managed to finish his career with a 44-48 record in 897 2/3 innings pitched. He also had 436 strikeouts and a 4.07 career earned run average. In that '49 season, he was 16-11 with 118 strikeouts and a 4.28 ERA.

Fortunately, Berkow was able to interview Brissie many times in South Carolina to get his story directly, rather than research it through newspaper clips or magazine stories.

An excerpt from page 21:

On the evening after the operation, Dr. Brubaker returned to Brissie's bedside to reiterate the precarious state of injury to the leg, and that he would be given regular doses of penicillin. But he reassured him that every possible medical support would be given to try to avoid amputation. Brubaker said that although there was no solid bone in more than four inches of his left leg, he wired together te torn bone and stitched together the ripped muscles and severed tendons. "It went pretty well," Brubaker said. "But let's see how it goes in the next few weeks."
Brossie brimmed with emotion. "Thank you doctor," said Brissie. "Thank you." That was all he could muster.

Sounds like an ESPN movie waiting to happen.

One more clip, from Brokaw's forward:

"Read about the remarkable life of this modest patriot and remember him, as I will, the next time you hear about an overpaid, undertalented and self-absorbed athlete complaining he's not getting a fair shake."

How it goes down in the scorebook: 1U -- a line-drive back through the box, only to be snared by the pitcher in perfect fielding position.

Where to read more: Brissie's career stats on BaseballReference.com (linked here) show he actually hit a triple in 1949.

One other thing of note: In 1948, famed sportswriter Grantland Rice wrote about Brissie in a Sport magazine story about the stars of the former Textile League: "Venerable Connie Mack came up with one of the real finds of the year. Lou Brissie, a 215-pound southpaw, has captured the hearts of baseball fans everywhere by his courageous triumph over a severe leg injury and by his performance on the mound. There have been many stories of servicemen who barely escaped death and returned to play ball again. Lou Brissie's case puts him on top. Brissie's left leg was all but torn away by shell fragments in the Italian campaign. Only his great determination to play baseball again saved Brissie from losing the the leg. With the help of a heavy protective brace, Lou returned to the mound, winning 23 and losing only 5 in the Sally League last year."

Other books by Ira Berkow:

"Beyond the Dream: Occasional Heroes of Sports" (2008)
"Full Swing: Hits, Runs and Errors in a Writer's Life" (2007)
"Court Vision: Unexpected Views on the Lure of Basketball" (2004)
"To the Hoop:The Seasons of a Basketball Life" (2004)
"Carew" (1979)
"The Gospel According to Casey" (1992)
"Baseball's Natural: The Story of Eddie Waitkus" (2006)
"Oscar Robertson: The Golden Year, 1964 (1971)

UPDATE at 11:30 a.m.: The Angels have announced that tonight's game has been postponned. No information on a make up date.

Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

Angels starter Nick Adenhart delivers in the first inning against Oakland on Wednesday at Angels Stadium.

There's no possible way to equate the different fates that Nick Adenhart met in the matter of hours last night and this morning.

The Angels' 22-year-old pitcher, in his first start of the season, got through six scoreless innings against Oakland on Wednesday night, striking out five, leaving the game with a 3-0 lead until the bullpen gave up six runs over the last two innings and took the blame in an eventual 6-4 loss at Angels Stadium.

The loss they've all felt this morning is much worse. The person who should be taking the blame for it has yet to be identified.

Shortly after midnight, according to early Fullerton police reports, Adenhart and two others were killed at the intersection of Orangethorpe Avenue and Lemon Street. A minivan ran a red light, broadsiding a Mitsubishi with four people in it -- including Adenhart, a passenger. Two were pronounced dead at the scene -- the female driver and male passenger. Adenhart was pronounced dead later after surgery at a nearby Irvine hospital. No other members of the Angels organization were involved.

The minivan driver tried to run away, but police caught him a mile away and have him facing felony hit-and-run charges.

That intersection remains closed this morning as the police investigation continues, and as news of Adenhart's death continues to be reported on ESPN's "SportsCenter" and fans are allowed to cry aloud on the Angels' owned radio station, KLAA-AM (830) with hosts Dave Smith and Roger Lodge.

Ken Steinhardt/Orange County Register/AP photo

Investigators check out the scene of the crash in Fullerton this morning, an incident where Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and two others were killed.

We're left numb, to read the surreal haunting quotes of Adenhart's performance -- his fourth career start -- just hours earlier. Sixty one of his 98 pitches were in the strike zone. He was confident and in command. He struck Jason Giambi out at one point on three straight changeups.

"It felt good to work out of some jams early," said Adenhart, who made a comeback from Tommy John surgery earlier in his career. "My curveball was really working for me, and then my change came on later when I needed it."

He got out of plenty of trouble during that game Wednesday. He didn't avoid the real trouble later.

Said manager Mike Scioscia: "I thought he pitched a terrific game. He gave us a chance to win. He has better tools out there now. He pitched ahead a lot and was able to get back in counts and put guys away."

Now, we add Adenhart's name onto a list that just seems unreal.

Since the Angels came into existence in 1961 as an American League team, there's been these litany of tragedies that hardly seems fair:

1965: Rookie pitcher Dick Wantz dies of a brain tumor one month after his only major league game.

1968: Pitcher Minnie Rojas is paralyzed in a car accident that kills his two daughters.

1972: Infielder Chico Ruiz is killed in a car accident in San Diego.

1974: Relief pitcher Bruce Heinbechner, about to start his major league career, dies in a car accident during spring training in Palm Springs.

1975: Former pitcher Jim McGlothlin dies of leukemia at the age of 32.

1977: Shortstop Mike Miley is killed in a car accident in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

1978: Outfielder Lyman Bostock is shot and killed in Gary, Indiana, the victim of mistaken identity.

1981: Former catcher Ed Kirkpatrick is paralyzed in a car accident.

1989: Star relief pitcher Donnie Moore, who gave up Dave Henderson's home run in the 1986 ALCS with two outs and two strikes on him, shoots his wife, then commits suicide in front of the couple's son.

1992: Coach Deron Johnson dies of cancer. One month later, a team bus crashes during a road trip going from New York to Baltimore. Several members of the team are injured, and manager Buck Rodgers is hospitalized. The team had to postpone two games in Baltimore to restock their roster.

1996: Hall of Fame player and team coach Rod Carew's daughter, Michelle, dies of leukemia.

Do the Angels play their game tonight against the A's? Do they try to put this behind them and focus on baseball? How can you?

Adenhart is survived by his father Jim and mother Janet. His family released the following statement: "Nick's family expresses sincere gratitude for all the help the Angels have provided. He lived his dream and was blessed to be part of an organization comprised of such warm, caring, and compassionate people. The Angels were his extended family. Thanks to all of Nick's loyal supporters and fans throughout his career. He will always be in everyone's hearts forever."

Angels GM Tony Reagins issued the following statement on behalf of the club: "The Angels family has suffered a tremendous loss today. We are deeply saddened and shocked by this tragic loss. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Nick's famil, friends' loved ones and fans."

Take the day off. Do the right thing.

AVP commissioner Leonard Armato has resigned as the head of the pro beach volleyball tour, allowing chief operating officer Jason Hodell to take over, the league announced on its website today (linked here).

Armato will reman as a special adviser to the L.A.-based organization.

"Having built the Tour from six events in 2002 to 31 events this past year, and quadrupling our prize money, I am thrilled with the progress we have made," said Armato. "Coming off the success of the 2008 Olympics in which we won men and women's gold medals, pro beach volleyball is now one of the hottest sports in the world."

The management shakeup seems strange as the tour tries to capitalize on the buzz generated by the U.S. sweep of the Olympic gold medals in Beijing, where Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh won the women's tournament and Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser won the men's. The May-Treanor/Walsh team, however, won't be playing this season.

The former agent for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,Shaquille O'Neal and Oscar de la Hoya, Armato bought the AVP in 2001. What had been separate men's and women's tours with six events is now a unified circuit with 15 outdoor stops this year and 14 more over the winter in an indoor tour.

"I will forever be grateful to Leonard Armato for his contributions to the growth of the sport of beach volleyball," Walsh said. "With his tireless enthusiasm, Leonard has been an evangelist for our great sport bringing it to the masses and bringing to it many of our nation's best athletes. Leonard deserves to be recognized as a lead contributor to the advancement and betterment of our sport."

The AVP announced last year that Crocs had renewed its deal to serve as title sponsor for the AVP tour. Russell Athletic, Anheuser-Busch and John Paul Mitchell Systems have also extended their sponsorship agreements for three more years.

"It is an honor to work with the AVP, our athletes and our sponsors to continue the growth of our wonderful sport," Hodell said. "I'm sure I speak for the entire AVP when I say this is truly one of the most exciting times in the history of pro beach volleyball. I look forward to leading the Tour as we build on the momentum created under Leonard's leadership."

Also Wednesday, the tour announced that it received additional financing from RJSM Partners, part of the current ownership group.

The '09 Tour started two weeks ago in Pamana City Beach, Fla., and continues with the new Riverside Open from April 17-19. Other So Cal stops include San Diego (May 1-3), Huntington Beach (May 21-24), Manhattan Beach (July 16-19) and Hermosa Beach (Aug. 6-8).

The Associated Press

HILLSDALE, Mich. -- A student editor at the Hillsdale College newspaper found several dead animals on his porch a few days after an editorial critical of the school's baseball team ran in the paper.

The carcasses were discovered early Monday at the off-campus home rented by Beyond section editor John Krudy. The Collegian reports that the bodies of one-and-a-half deer, several large rodents and a black goat had been left on the porch.

A copy of the paper's April 2 sports section -- which included the critical editorial -- was underneath the goat.The Collegian has published an apology, calling the editorial a mistake.

Editor-in-Chief Joy Pavelski said Wednesday that Krudy has decided not to press charges.

The persons responsible have apologized, the residents of the house where the animals were deposited have accepted the apology and we're treating the matter as an administrative matter that will have some ongoing consequence here at the college," he said.

Bachelder would not elaborate, citing student privacy. He also declined to say whether any members of the baseball team were involved or being punished, or whether any action will be taken against members of the newspaper staff.

All the carcasses were collected from roadsides. No animals were killed as part of the prank, Bachelder said.

"If that were not the case, that would change the dimensions of this," he said.

It's now on Deadspin (linked here) and SportsByBrooks (linked here).

For the record, Bill Macdonald said he was told by an Angels rep that he'd been captured on a fan site and listed as a "panther" -- the male version of the "cougar." (linked here). The Angels were OK with it, as long as he was. He knows it goes with the "media celebrity" territory, like it or not. Just too bad the young lady has to be dragged into whatever preceived problem is created here. Or isn't.

The pure irony of all this may come later, when irrational Fox Sports Net execs get so bent out of shape they suspend Macdonald but continue to keep Norm Nixon on the air as Macdonald's Laker pre- and post-game analyst.

The book: "As They See 'Em: A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires"

The author: Bruce Weber

How to find it: Simon and Schuster, 352 pages, $26

Where we'd go looking for it: Here's a link to Barnes & Noble (linked here) and Powell's (linked here)

The scoop: The New York Times reporter has made the career of an umpire look even more attractive than it really should. He should know. He actually did it. From Little League to a big-league exhibition game.

But it's more than a Plimpton-esque journey into the dark side of baseball's men in black.

Why isn't every strike zone equal?

Why doesn't a tie go to the runner?

What kind of things do umpires and managers really yell at each other during an argument?

Weber's ability to interview umpires and players as they see the prominence of the position brings out more than just anecdotal information.

The book is an offshoot of Weber visiting the Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring in Kissimmee, Florida, to do a story for the New York Times in 2005. He then spent the last three years becoming an ump -- hitting the road with a Double-A crew.

Umps are rarely quoted in any kind of medium, so to get beyond that exterior and find the human side is really something special. They really can't even enjoy the game they and everyone else is watching. They take it very seriously. Yet, they know how to rip a mask off their face without messing up their hair. Most times.

The book also gets into some of the most high-profile umpire episodes in baseball history, such as the George Brett pine-tar incident (1983), Eric Gregg's 25 strike-out game in the '97 NL playoffs because a ridiculously wide strike zone, the botched Jeffrey Mair call in the 1996 ALCS at Yankee Stadium and Don Denkinger's missed call in the 1985 World Series.

It's hardly a tell-all tale, because the umps keep some things close to the chest protector. But it's about as close as you can get to the inside of their heads, what makes they want this somewhat thankless job, and how you can better appreciate the restraints they're under, on any level, at any time.

At a time when in 130 years only one major-league umpire has been accused of professional dishonesty -- and that was in 1982 -- it's Doug Harvey who says in the book: "The integrity of the game is the umpires. Nobody else. The entire integrity of the game is the umpires."

One hurler's opinion: What "Ball Four" author Jim Bouton wrote of this book in his review for the New York Times: "For future aspirants, the first step should be reading Bruce Weber's As They See 'Em, a wonderfully detailed look at the craft of umpiring...I must say that reading this book has given me a new appreciation for the men in blue...I never realized what it takes to be an umpire: encyclopedic knowledge of constantly evolving rules, and the exact positioning for each type of call; the ability to make snap decisions under pressure; the endurance to stand for three to five hours in all kinds of weather; the personality required to deal with endless criticism; and the presence necessary to command a game. And I liked the personal stories."

How it goes down in the scorebook: A bang-bang play at first base on a slow roller up along third -- with the ump getting the call right. As verified by instant replay.

Post script: From a list of questions give at the Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring, true or false:

1. Runner on second, two out. The batter hits a home run. But he misses first base as he's rounding the bases. Only one run counts?

2. An outfielder may wear a first-baseman's mitt in the outfield.

3. A batter-turned-runner can never be declared out when he it his by a thrown ball as he is running foul territory.

4. There is no penalty for throwing a glove at a fair ball.

5. The ball always becomes dead immediately when a balk is called.

Answers:
1. False (no runs count; out at first is a force play)
2. False (the first baseman's glove exceeds the allowable measurements of an outfielder's glove)
3. False (if the batter running to first in foul territory outside the runner's lane is hit by a true throw to first, the batter may be declared out, such as when a catcher is throwing from foul territory to first on a dropped third strike).
4. True (a three-base penalty, if the glove touches the ball)
5. False (if the balk is committed when there's a pickoff, the ball stays in play until the play ends.)

"I've been blessed with many things in this life: an arm like a damn rocket, a (unit) like a Burmese python, and the mind of a f---ing scientist..."

HBO announced this grand morning that it has renewed the comedy/tragedy foul-mouthed series "Eastbound & Down" for a second season, with production starting later this year so episodes can air sometime in 2010.

"'Eastbound & Down's' raucous comedy sparked a loyal and enthusiastic following that grew throughout the season, and we're happy to bring the show back for more innings," Michael Lombardo, the president of programming and West Coast operations, said in a rather lame statement.

For those not yet up to speed: Danny McBride stars as Kenny Powers, a former major league relief pitcher (think John Rocker, with a Rod Beck mullet) who sabotages his career with drugs, partying and steroids before he's out of the game and back in North Carolina teaching middle school Phys Ed. The last of the six-series first season that ended last month had McBride thinking he had another tryout in Tampa, only to find out it fell through. But he had already said goodbye to his brother's family (who he lived with) and swept up his old flame (who he then left at the gas station on the way to Florida) and headed into unchartered territory.

Among those in the media that reviewed it:

== Entertainment Weekly: A show that's "a winner about a real loser."
== New Yorker: "Kenny Powers will live on in our minds after he's left the screen."
== The Hollywood Reporter: (The series is) "sublimely hilarious."
== The Washington Post: "The most recklessly funny comedy of the year."

Will Ferrell will stay on as an executive producer, with McBride as well as Adam McKay, Chris Henchy, Jody Hill and Ben Best.

Clip courtesy of Fanhouse

Here is the poem called "The Little Chap That Follows Me" that the former UCLA coach reads in the clip above, a "G" commercial for Gatorade, which debuted Monday during the NCAA Tournament final:

A careful man I must always be;
A little fellow follows me.
I know I dare not go astray
For fear he'll go the self same way.

I cannot once escape his eyes,
Whate'er he sees me do, he tries.
Like me he says he's going to be;
The little chap who follows me.

He thinks that I am good and fine,
Believes in every word of mine.
The base in me he must not see;
The little chap who follows me.

I must be careful as I go
Through summer's sun and winter's snow,
Because I'm building for the years to be;
This little chap who follows me.

The book I: "Save at Home: Confessions of a Baseball Fanatic" by Alyssa Milano (William Morrow, $22.99, 256 pages)

The book II: "Confessions of a She-Fan: The Course of True Love with the New York Yankees" by Jane Heller (Rodale Books, $24.95, 262 pages)

Where we'd go looking for them: The Oprah Book Club list of "Yeah, we thought about it, but .."

The scoop: We don't intend to read either of these, but we have scanned them, from top to bottom, admired their pretty covers, touched the inside pages with our fingertips just to get that sense of texture, smelled the spine and caressed it to our chest, to see if there was any kind of emotional bond.

We felt cold. And warm. At the same time.

Good for them, for writing a book about baseball. There aren't enough of them out there. Joe Torre realizes that. He's written the forward for the Milano tome -- but she, of course, admits to have never met him. Her CAA agent happened to know Torre's agent, they sent him a few chapters, he read them, thought it was a nice gesture to write about it and sent it back.

No, Milano did not write the forward to Torre's "My Yankee Years." That seemed to obvious.

Milano has done a delicious job of promoting this thing -- you can hear or see or read about it many place. We, in fact, feel the best information came from an issue of Star Magazine (the one with Angelina Jolie yelling at Brad Pitt for hooking up with the nanny, Natalie Portman's trist with Sean Penn and ... you just gotta read the rest for yourself). In a story entitled, "She's The BOSS!" (where'd they come up that, Danza?), the former child sar admits to overcoming depressions, weight problems and a broken marriage.
How's this about baseball?

Because Barry Zito, Carl Pavano and Brad Penny helped along the way. Sorta.

"To be completely honest, after Barry and I broke up, I swore off baseball players," she writes.

She was married to a rock star named Cinjun Tate for 11 months. Now, at age 36, she has "finally made the decision to get professional help" and she finally fell in love with her agent, David Bulgiari, aged .... 30.

Yes, our little Samantha has grown up to be a modern-day cougar.

She's had a charmed life, and baseball seems to tie it all together. We're happy for her. We hope this means she'll stop stalking major-league players. And she can crosspromote her line of "Touch" clothing at the ballparks.

She's even got this "If I Were Comissioner" line in the book: I would set aside 10,000 affordable seats in every ball park, ban beach balls, abolish the designated-hitter rule and remove home-field advantage in the World Series as an All-Star Game incentive.

That's deep.

As we said, we didn't quite finish reading it. But here's a review from a guy/stalker in Whitter who put this up on Amazon.com:

"Her heart beats in time with the true heart of Baseball On every page she celebrates what Baseball is what it was and what it can be again. We see the times it has sustained her and other times when it lifted her still further. We feel the bond it helps create with her Father and perhaps in a bigger sense the bond created with the true natue of the human spirit. Also in her frank no nonsense honesty she tells it like it is regarding what is wrong with Americas game. A good read in so many ways."

Now, go take a cold shower.

As for this Yankee-lover story ... First, beware. That's not the chick-lit author's face on the cover.

Heller, who lives in Santa Barbara, has decided to do a diary of the 2007 Yankees season. The book was in motion after a "divorce" essay she wrote for the New York Times with the help of Harvey Araton. The divorce was between her and the Yankees, two months into that '07 season. It only took Torre a few months later to make his divorce from the team official.

Readers were upset over her Times essay, and it forced her to look at her own feelings about winning and losing. She actually took her husband as her partner to travel around and follow the Yankees through the rest of that season, every game, no matter where it was played -- which ended with ... we won't spoil it. You'll have to look that up.

Her feeling about loyalty, romance, commitment, patience and love come out between her and her Yanks.

Heller, who has written 13 books, including one called: "An Ex to Grind," has a relationship angle to her story that is very similar to Milano's. But she may have received the best publicity for her book recently when, according to Page Six of the New York Post, the the Yankees "are snubbing one of their biggest fans" because they won't run an ad for it in their opening day program. "They deemed it too 'controversal.'" Said Heller: "It's sad to have the Yankees so mad at a fan who writes about how much she loves her team."

Milano's reps may have to try some similar controversal tact to see if baseball fans want to care about her book.

How it goes down in the scorebook: Our wife has always been accomodating when we're at a game, going up to the concession stand to get another dog or Coke or heap of nachos. We've come to appreciate that aspect of the relationship very much. We're not sure what it says about our views of this book, but it makes us, again, give thanks for a wife who loves baseball, and making her husband happy occasionally.

And now, we search the MLB "Extra Innings" for the next Florida Marlins game/aka visit to the Miami Hooters:

The book: "Dodgers Past & Present"

The author: Steven Travers

How to find it: MVP Books, 143 pages, $25

Where we'd go looking for it: Wait a few weeks and it could be in the Barnes & Noble "Value" section, next to those giant coffee table books about the greatest Jeeps used during WWII, heading for the movable rack that sits outside the main doors listed "Buy 1, Get 17 Free!"

The scoop: This was best to review following up on previous books by or about the O'Malley legacy, Manny Ramirez and Steve Lyons. Put this in the later category.

Travers ... where do we start. The endorsements of his work on the back dust cover come from StreetZebra magazine, a free publication that hasn't existed in about 10-plus years, plus the Fairfield Daily Republic and sports-talk show host Arnie Spanier. That pretty much puts it all into context.

As a picture book, sure, it's not bad. Dodger fans always have time to look at old photos of the team, and you should check Page 6 to see all the photo and illustration credits. Most are available from wire services and libraries that are either easy to buy or free to the public.

As Travers does with pretty much every book he's been comissioned to "write," he takes his material from other sources. Therefore, his biblography and resources page (140) lists pretty much every other Dodger coffee table book ever done -- most specificially, Glenn Stout's "The Dodgers: 120 Years of Dodgers Baseball" (2004) and Richard Whittingham's "Illustrated History of the Dodgers" (2005). Both are far better examples, and definitely worth the money, if you want some real oversized Dodger history on your bookshelf.

There is, to put it blunt, nothing new here. Or nothing you haven't read or seen before. The chapters are pedestrian ("Left-Handed Pitchers: Southpaws" for example, and include a shot of Odalis Perez, thankfully), the writing is predictable, the intent is presumptious, but we'll say it anyway -- to capitalize on the Dodger logo.

It's not worth buying if you're trying to steady an uneven leg on your dining room table. Although it seems to be as thin as a book of matches that would equally do the trick. And provide the same amount of enjoyment.

How it goes down in the scorebook: As smart a buy as an Andruw Jones autographed jersey.

The book: "The Psycho 100: Baseball's Most Outrageous Moments"

The author: Steve "Psycho" Lyons (with Burton Rocks)

How to find it: Triumph Books, 224 pages, $14.95

Where we'd go looking for it: Steve Lyons' garage sale later this summer.

The scoop: The premise is fun -- 100 things that were goofy, crazy, nutty, spectacular and special that happened in baseball.

Like, like, like ... remember the time when Steve Lyons was playing for the White Sox, and he slid into first base, and he got all that dirt down his pants, so he ... oh, you already know about that. Well, he tells it all again. In the very first chapter. It's the first event that he rates -- a 9.7 on a scale of 1-to-10, in a story entitled "Psycho Becomes a Household Name."

"How many times do you think I've told this story?" he begins in telling the story again. "Do you think I'm tired of telling it? Well, to answer that question, I'll pose another: Does Mick Jager get tired of singing 'Satisfaction'?"

There's your answer. Still, his biggest accomplishment in life, by the way. So much so that rarely do any of the other 99 incidents in the book either tie or surpass that 9.7 rating on his "meter." Why would something else be better than something he did?

The story of Babe Ruth's "called shot" -- only a 9.2.

George Brett and the pine-tar bat -- nope, just a 9.0.

Randy Johnson kills a bird with a pitch -- just an 8.9.

Pedro Martinez goes psychotic and bodyslams Don ZImmer -- a meager 7.9.

Robin Ventura's noogies from Nolan Ryan -- sorry, 7.8.

Juan Marichal goes after Johnny Roseboro with a bad -- pfffff... try 8.4. (Even dumber, Lyons names this incident: "Johnny Roseboro Attacks Juan Marichal")

That wasn't the most psycho thing you've ever seen?

See where we're going here?

OK, there are a couple things actually worth mentioning that either match or surpass 9.7 -- when John Kruk gave up hitting against Randy Johnson in the 1993 All-Star Game ties the mark.

When a minor-league team managed by Buck Showalter hit into a triple play -- without anyone on the other team even touching the ball (which team and when it happened? It's never researched enough to verify it's even true) ... that drew a meter-best 9.9.

How about the time Lyons tried to speak Spanish in the Fox broadcast booth, and was fired the next day?

Hijinx should ensue. Hilarity should prevail. Humility would be better at this point.

Lyons has now milked every ounce of his nickname out of himself for financial gain, and reinforced the idea that the more he thinks he knows about baseball, the more someone else needs to spellcheck, factcheck and check the alcohol content of his pregame beverage.

Hey, Jay Johnstone just called and wants his schtict back.

Spare us any sequels. Or further embarassment of having to hear the pants-go-down story again.

How it goes down in the scorebook: E-(whatever position Lyons played most in the field).
By the way, there's a June 9 booksigning scheduled for the Barnes & Noble at the Grove in L.A. at 7:30 p.m. Show up with a copy of his book and try to sell it back to him.

The book: "Becoming Manny: Inside the Life of Baseball's Most Enigmatic Slugger"

The author: Jean Rhodes and Shawn Boburg (authorized by Manny Raminez)

How to find it: Schribner, 304 pages, $25

Where we'd go looking for it: Powells' online store has it (linked here).

The scoop: Apparently, it was easier for Man-Ram to authorize this book on him than it was to authorize Scott Boras to get a contract signed with the Dodgers.

Supposedly, you already know about "Manny Being Manny," so this takes it a step further: How did he become Manny?

The interesting approach for this project -- getting into Manny's head -- is that Rhodes, who has a PhD in clinical psychology and teaches classes on adolescent development and urban poverty, is the co-author. She lives in Boston and watched the whole mess take place last July that led to his trade to the Dodgers. With Boburg, a reporter at The Bergen County (N.J.) Record, who has a background in investigative reporting and spent a lot of time in the Dominican Republic, there's another plus in how this story is told. They were given access to his family, teammates and friends to get this done.

You learn how Manny has needed a strong influence in his life from the start, where Carlos Ferreira, a gentle soul who coached him in Little League, made his impact. Ramirez grew up in some mean streets of Washington Heights area of New York City and it wasn't so easy for him to trust people.

Then, you get to understand the Boston media, which takes itself, and Ramirez, so seriously that it was bound to explode in their faces and force him to ask for a trade. They didn't "get" him. You can see how L.A. must be a better scene for him.

An excerpt from the chapter 30: "Mannywood"

On the day Manny left Boston, the Globe psoted a chart with his career numbers from 1993 through 2007: .312 average, .409 OBP and 510 homers. Next to it was the headline: "Manny Deal Was Necessary."
On many levels, Manny's song never played well in the Boston market. Exasperation surfaced with every trade request, lack of hustle, injury or gaffe. (Kevin) Millar once summed him up to the Globe: "He's got a good heart, a heart of gold. But there's also a gap there and he does things that (tick) people off. I don't know why he does it."
He does it, perhaps, because he lives on the moment, neither suffering regret nor calculating the consequences of his next move. ... None of which excuses Manny's meltdown in 2008. Still, he had reasons for his frustration. He had never come to grips with the intensity of the Red Sox fans. "I've got people waiting for me at 3 a.m. in my hallway," he complains. ... Still, he seemed surprised by the backlash.

How it goes down in the scorebook: A routine fly to left field, watching Manny circle around it, then ask Matt Kemp to come over and help him catch it, then pat him on the back for his teamwork. He then takes the ball out of Kemp's glove and tosses it into the left-field pavilion. The book, like Manny himself, sure make things interesting.

The book: "The Yankee Years"

The author: Joe Torre and Tom Verducci

How to find it: Doubleday, 502 pages, $26.95

Where we'd go looking for it: If you can't find it, you're not looking hard enough. Just don't go to the New York tabloids for excerpts.

The scoop: Frank McCourt insists that Joe Torre has a clause in his current Dodgers managerial contract that prohibits him from doing a "tell-all" book about his days running the team. That's too bad. The work here he's done with Verducci, the Sports Illustrated writer, is top-notch stuff, hardly kiss-and-back-stab and far more indepth and revealing than whatever snippets you or David Wells may be misinformed about.

A fraud? That's not what they called A-Rod on the Yankee team, it's what the New York tabs did in trying to review this book in stories done before spring training started.

First, it's written mostly from Verducci's research than Torre's storytelling. Mike Mussina may be as quoted as much as Torre, for that matter. It's not a Torre memoir. Some have compared it to Buster Olney's book, "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty New Edition: The Game, the Team, and the Cost of Greatness."

A Dodger fan has to read this to understand how he's running their team. Trust seems to be a big virtue of Torre's managerial philosophy. And there's nothing he hasn't said here that already hasn't been chronicled in other newspapers, magazines or TV reports, so the perception that Torre is taking things out of context and presenting them as a way to knock someone else is completely wrong.

A Red Sox fan will also get a lot out of this, since Verducci spend a lot of analysis breaking down how the franchise is run, how it influenced the Yankees' personnel moves and how that affected Torre's decision making. So much so that the Yankees might have wanted to emulate what the Red Sox were doing with their Bill James-influenced statistical data that, for example, kept track of every college baseball player in the country and how they panned out in the pros.

You need any more endorsement, KSPN-AM 710's Steve Mason has called this his favorite book since Michael Lewis' "Moneyball," and writes on his blog (linked here): "If you want to understand the game of baseball in the late 90's and the early part of this decade, read 'The Yankee Years.' You will understand why Torre is worth every penny of what Frank and Jamie McCourt are paying him."

How it goes down in the scorebook: A calculated call to the bullpen. If the reader reviews on Amazon.com mean anything, it has a four-out-of-five stars from 117 reviews, with 66 of them giving it a full five stars (and five giving it a one or two star review respectively)

Postscript: Other books also written by Torre:

"Chasing the Dream: My Lifelong Journey to the World Series" (1998)
"Joe Torre's Ground Rules for Winners: 12 Keys to Managing Team Players, Tough Bosses, Setbacks, and Success" (2000)

By Jim Litke
AP Sports Columnist

DETROIT -- You can't spell commercialization without NCAA.

Once that seemed like a coincidence. Increasingly it seems to be the reason the NCAA exists -- to provide cover for member schools while they chase every last sponsorship dollar.

Although those schools haven't resorted to temporary tattoos, just about everything else that was once taboo -- ads from casinos, corporate logos slapped on college arenas and courts, video games in which the players aren't named but the resemblance is unmistakable -- is now routine.

Even the paper cups used at concession stands inside Ford Field during the Final Four,
which were unmarked except for a small NCAA logo until last year, now advertise the official water of the NCAA.

It's important to be clear upfront that while the organization can punish member schools for all kinds of cheating, it can't do a thing about the profligate spending that has athletic departments auctioning off pieces of their teams like body parts to the highest bidder. And it's about to get worse.

No more than a handful of the 330 Division I sports programs made money in recent years. According to the NCAA's latest figures from 2005-06, the average basketball team took in $480,000 and spent $1.3 million, with the deficit being made up in most cases by the university's general fund. With new accounting standards in place that require including expenses such as new stadiums and facilities upgrades, the real losses could total several times that.

"For a long time," NCAA president Myles Brand said Thursday, "it was believed that you could make money doing this. Right now, as everyone knows, if you're going to support the entire program, not just the two revenue sports (football and basketball), it's highly likely you're going to lose money."

Brand, who made his name in college sports by firing Bob Knight at Indiana, was among the leaders of a movement a dozen years ago to shift control of the NCAA from athletic directors to university presidents. The theory was that peer-group pressure would put an end to the "financial arms race" of escalating coaches salaries and bigger stadiums that forced schools deeper and deeper into the red just to stay competitive.

So how's that theory working out for you?

Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press

Enrique Iglesias and Anna Kournikova do what they're supposed to do when shown on the stadium's "kiss cam" during a match between Serena Williams and her sister Venus Williams at the Sony Ericsson Open tennis tournament in Key Biscayne, Fla., on Thursday.

More from today's media column on the Michael D'Antonio book, "Forever Blue: The True Story of Walter O'Malley, Baseball's Most Controversial Owner, and the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles" (linked here).....

== There was also some anti-Dodger sentiment from the TV and radio people in Los Angeles when the team arrived, D'Antonio found. Those in that booming media business were afraid that O'Malley had a deal lined up to start the first pay-TV service. He invested a lot of money into several companies he thought could pull this off for him, but it never panned out.
"It's funny, he really foreshadowed cable television's development, but he just couldn't make it happen," said D'Antonio. "That was one of the few things he lost money on."

== Thanks to the free access to the Sports Illustrated website vault, the July 22, 1957 story that New York parks commissioner Robert Moses wrote in explaining why O'Malley was being so uncooperative can be read word-for-word (at this link). Unfortunately, there's no photo of Moses to accompany it. We did find this photo of Moses, left, with the tie that may come close to it -- and also explain how he worked the political machine in New York.

== And here's the recent excerpt of the book that Sports Illustrated supplied in its March 3 issue (linked here), perhaps as a "make good" from the piece it allowed Moses to write some 50 years earlier.

== The other aspect of this D'Antonio book is that much of his research came from the O'Malley family files -- much of which have already been accessable on the Walter O'Malley official website (linked here). Walter's son and former Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley, with his older sister, Terry O'Malley Seidler, launched the site several years ago in an effort to make public many of the photographs, personal letters -- pretty much everything -- that their father kept on file. D'Antonio gained further access to longer, hand-written notes that could help piece together some of O'Malley's business meetings, particularily documenting the times when he began to ask the New York politicians for some assistance on building a new facility.

== NBC has the Santa Anita Derby (Saturday, 2 to 3 p.m., Channel 4) with Tom Hammond and Gary Stevens, plus Mike Battaglia, Kenny Rice and Donna Barton Brothers. Also, Bob Neumeier will be live at the Illinois Derby.

== The docudrama series "Jockeys" will return for a second season of seven hour-long episodes this summe ron Animal Planet. The show focuses on the lives of seven riders at Santa Anita racetrack -- including Mike Smith and live-in girlfriend Chantal Sutherland. The other jocks include Alex Solis, Joe Talamo, Kayla Stra and Aaron Gryder. For the new episodes, Garrett Gomez and Corey Nakatani will join. John Court will leave the show as he moves to Kentucky to ride. Animal Planet says more than 9.2 million viewers watched the show's initial run of 30-minute episodes, which ended March 13.

== Long-time WNBC-TV sports anchor Len Berman in New York told the New York Times he will leave in May and work more on his website www.lenbermansports.com and do more with his blooper video series.

== AND FINALLY:

Sorry if we're a little tardy on this, but DirecTV announced recently that it will feature a new show this summer on its 101 Network channel that takes Dan Patrick's radio show one step closer to being a full-on TV series.

There'll be some 250 episodes a year spinning off Patrick's show that airs from 6 to 9 a.m. locally on KLAC-AM (570). It'll air live, Monday through Friday, but "more than just a straight simulcast of the radio program," according to the DTV folks.

"Dan is much taller and funnier in person and when he's not behind a desk," said Eric Shanks, executive vice president of Entertainment at DIirecTV. "You never know what Dan could do whenever he is left to his own devices but it sounds like it will be a twisted version of 'The Office' with some guests and sports commentary mixed in-at least that's what he is telling us anyway."

Asked about the new show, Patrick said: "I'm a natural for DirecTV. I work best when you point me towards the southwesterly sky with an unobstructed view."

OSAKA, Japan (AP) -- Japan's first female professional baseball player made her debut Friday, striking out one batter in the ninth inning.

Eri Yoshida, a 17-year-old who throws a sidearm knuckleball, took the mound during Kobe 9 Cruise's 5-0 season-opening win over the Osaka Gold Villicanes in the newly formed Kansai Independent League.

The 5-foot, 114-pounder walked the first batter leading off the inning on four pitches and allowed a stolen base before striking out the next batter swinging at Osaka Dome. She was then replaced after facing two batters.

"I wasn't thinking about anything other than just going out there and giving it my all," said Yoshida, who is hoping to stick with the Kobe team. "I think this was a bad result but the stadium is great and the fans were really cheering me on. I want to be able to pitch more innings and become a pitcher who can be relied upon."

Yoshida created a stir when she signed a contract in December. Some speculated th